As we get closer to the launch date of Apple's iPad (April 3), I can't help but ponder how each application I use might translate to the new device.

Games obviously will have a lot more flexibility with the added touch-screen space, and having more available screen room will probably make development of more complex control systems easier. Apps in every category will have a little more processing power to work with, taking away any delays we've grown used to on the iPhone and iPod Touch. But another noticeable difference for me is how I look at apps, now that I know the iPad is coming.

I try to imagine every productivity app, every digital-photo editor, and every game I review these days on the iPad. I ask myself, what would game developers add to the iPad version of this game? How would it look on the larger screen? Will we see a large number of pixelated ports of certain apps in the beginning while developers upgrade their offerings? Which app developers are likely to stick to developing only for iPhone and iPod Touch?

With so many apps at the App Store, it's tough to know which ones will be truly iPad-ready at launch, or how long it will take for developers to make the necessary changes. But I'd like know what you think: Which of your favorite apps are perfect for the iPad? Which ones aren't? Let us know in the comments.

This week's apps include a simple calendar app for viewing more months at a time and a sailboat-racing game that's more than meets the eye.

Years is a simple, elegant calendar app that is useful for some things but needs some work to be great. Launching the app gives you a nicely laid out full-year calendar, making it easy to plan for vacations or mark important dates.

To make it all visually appealing, Years shows four months at a time on screen, but you can easily scroll to later in the year with a swipe of your finger. Buttons at the top let you see the previous year, or you can plan for the coming year.

Touching a month gives you a full-screen view. The app gives you four different ways to mark your calendar, accessed by tapping on buttons at the bottom. You can circle dates, cross them out, use a little scribble graphic, or add a star. There is no text input. When you're finished marking your important dates, you can e-mail the month or year image to remind someone of important dates, or copy the image for your personal use.

Years is quite a useful little app, even though there's not much to it. As long as you set up your own system for what each mark means, you can actually call out most of your important dates nicely. With that said, it would be very helpful to have things like text input for more detailed scheduling, day views for mapping out your busy day, and push alerts so you don't miss anything important.

Certainly the possibilities are endless, and there are many calendar apps out there that have those things, but maybe this is exactly the way the developers wanted this calendar app to be--a quick view of important dates with an elegant interface. Either way, Years will be useful to just about anyone, even without more advanced features.

Sailboat Championship Pro ($2.99) is the full version of a free sailboat-racing game, now with more options and courses. Sailboat Championship Pro uses the previous game (a separate free download) as the tutorial for the Pro version, so check out the free version to get a taste for the game.

Sailboat Championship Pro offers beautiful graphics and sounds, while challenging you to race through several regattas and later race against computer-controlled opponents. You'll be able to unlock new courses, as well as new boats, with varying strengths and weaknesses, as you progress. Whereas the free version was about taking on different roles on a sailboat to complete races, Sailboat Championship Pro focuses on being the skipper, and tackling difficult courses and changing wind environments.

Sailboat Championship Pro is a very well thought-out game, forcing you to learn the best way to capture the wind with your sail in order to maintain speed while you navigate each course. The steering wheel in the lower right provides control over the craft, but you'll quickly realize that there are strategies for harnessing the most wind power, often by taking a line around a corner you wouldn't normally take in another racing game.

The game offers some options to help get you acclimated, such as the option to hire a sailor so you can concentrate on steering, but most of your success with this game will come through trial and error.

Overall, with beautiful graphics, realistic wind physics, and plenty of courses to test your skill, Sailboat Championship Pro is a fun game for those who like sailing and even those who never considered buying a sailing game.

What's your favorite iPhone app? Which apps do you think will be iPad hits, and which will stick to the tried-and-true iPhone versions? Does Years need the options that other calendar apps have, or is it fine the way it is? Are you surprised how fun sailing on the iPhone is? Let me know in the comments!

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

BlackBerry owner? Check. Business professional? Check. A million contacts to keep track of? Again, check. The new premium Xobni for BlackBerry is the latest tool for the mobile workforce and we've got to say, it's a handy one.

If you're familiar with Xobni for Outlook, the conceit will sound familiar. Xobni builds a profile for every person you contact from your phone, adding them to a growing database of people that you can reach out to, even if you have never added them to your address book.

Top it off with a premium subscription to get Outlook contacts on your BlackBerry through the cloud-based Xobni One, and you're looking at a contact management app that pulls its own weight. It isn't a cheap service and there's still plenty of room for improvement, but we certainly wouldn't steer heavy e-mail users away.

See other must-have apps for work and for play in our BlackBerry Starter Kit.

There's something to be said for a simple, straightforward note-taking app that borrows from the familiar: sticky notes. BugMe! is one such app.

If the name rings a bell, you probably owned a PalmPilot at some point. That's where the app originated, and call me nostalgic, but I'm happy to see it reborn for the iPhone.

Admittedly, the App Store is already replete with sticky note-inspired task managers, so what sets BugMe! apart? In a word: simplicity.

Instead of packing the app with features, developer Electric Pocket kept the interface about as straightforward as they come. Tap "New Note," then just drag your finger to draw.

You can toggle between a paintbrush and eraser tool, choose from eight paint colors (each with a small or large brush size), and pick one of four background colors for your note. You can also turn any photo into a background or fire up the camera to shoot one on the spot.

To set an alarm, just tap the Alarm icon. And to do something with your note besides add it to your digital corkboard, tap the paper airplane. You can e-mail a note, post it to Twitter, save it to your photo album, or turn it into your home-screen wallpaper--great for really important reminders you don't want to forget.

I have only two real complaints with BugMe! First, there's no undo option: Whatever you draw, stays--unless you manually erase it. Second, alarms require connectivity, something I don't understand. That means there's a chance you could miss an important alarm. It also leaves iPod Touch users out in the cold unless there's Wi-Fi nearby.

Ultimately, I can't say BugMe! is the best of the sticky-note apps. (Do you have a favorite? Name it in the comments). But I do admire its ease of operation and mostly smart features. For this PalmPilot veteran, it's 99 cents well spent.

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

Google's default browser is just fine to get you started on your new Android smartphone. It's got some Grade-A tools, but style-wise it's a little bland and we have a bone to pick with its so-called tabbed browsing.

Thanks to a bustling Android Market, you have options when it comes to mobile browsing experiences. We present you with three alternatives with different looks, and in some cases, more substance: Bump off Google's default Android browser.

Originally posted at Android Atlas

You can create a disk image in the Enterprise, Business, and Ultimate versions of Windows Vista, but if you use Vista Home Premium, you need a third-party app to image a disk or partition. I was delighted to find a disk-imaging component added to the Backup and Restore applet in the Home Premium version of Windows 7.

Why it took Microsoft so long to include disk imaging in a nonbusiness version of Windows is a mystery. Even more puzzling is why the company didn't try harder to make Win7's disk-imaging tool as fast and simple to use as freeware backup alternatives.

(The backup function in earlier versions of Windows lets you create copies of your files and settings but not your Windows installation, applications, and everything else on your hard drive. For data backups, I prefer the free iDrive online service I wrote about in a post from March 2008.)

When I compared Windows 7's disk-imaging function with the disk imager in the free Easeus Todo Backup from Chengdu Yiwo Tech Development, the third-party backup app came out on top in every category. Easeus Todo Backup is fast, easy to use, and reliable. The program even managed to fit on two DVDs the 88GB partition holding my Win7 installation. Windows 7's disk imager required four DVDs to back up the same partition.

Disk imagers go head-to-head
I tested the disk imagers on a relatively pristine Windows 7 Home Premium installation, the only program loaded on the test system other than Windows itself was Easeus Todo Backup. Easeus Todo Backup installed without a hitch, although I had to restart the PC to complete the installation. The three main options on the program's start screen are to back up a disk or partition, restore a previous backup, or clone one hard drive to another.

Choosing Backup starts the program's Backup Wizard, which prompts you to select a partition to image. You can also choose to create the image sector by sector, which backs up the free sectors on the drive or partition as well as the ones storing data. The advantage of this method is that the resulting image will be the same size as the disk or partition being backed up.

Once you select the disk or partition to be imaged and click Next, the wizard offers to use the program's default image settings or let you customize the backup. I stuck with the default and clicked Next again. The wizard then lets you annotate the image with a comment. Click Next once more to start the imaging process.

It took the program just 20 minutes and two 4.7GB DVDs to complete the image. Easeus Todo Backup's Restore Wizard is just as simple to use and almost as fast at restoring a previously created image. The program also lets you create a bootable disc, mount the backup file as a virtual image partition, and make sure a backup image file is restorable.

Win7's disk imager is slow going
After my pleasant experience using Easeus Todo Backup, I expected Windows 7's disk-imaging feature to work just as well. Not so. The process took more than four times as long and required twice as many DVDs to complete.

You access Win7's Backup and Restore Center applet by clicking Start > All Programs > Maintenance > Backup and Restore Center. A faster method is to press the Windows key, type backup, and press Enter. After the program opens, click "Create a system image" in the left pane to begin the process.

On the next screen, choose the device on which you'll store the image and click Next. Windows then gives you an estimate of how large the image will be and indicates which disks/partitions will be backed up. Click Start backup. If you chose to store the image on DVDs, Windows will ultimately prompt you to enter a blank, formatted disc in the drive (if the disc isn't formatted, Windows will format it for you).

I expected the imaging process to take about as long to finish using the Windows utility as it took Easeus Todo Backup to complete the task. Instead, I waited more than four times as long for the image to complete and ended up requiring twice as many DVDs. Restoring the image using Win7's utility was likewise slower than Easeus's image-restore component.

In this case, it makes a lot of sense to download and install the free alternative to Windows' own disk-imaging utility, at least until Microsoft starts taking disk imaging as seriously as it's starting to take security.

Originally posted at Workers' Edge