Speed review: Replacing your car dashboard with an iPad

Developer Steven Troughton-Smith has re-written his acclaimed Speed for iPhone application for the iPad. The new iPad application takes full advantage of the iPad’s larger display, Retina graphics support, and the device’s GPS. The concept of Speed is simple: it uses the iPad’s sensors, including the GPS, to be able to process and inform users how fast their car is moving. The application has a beautifully embedded Google Map interface to show your car (as a blue dot) in motion, and also uses the device’s compass to which direction you are headed. The application also features a center dial (analog or digital) that allows users to setup a maximum speed. If a user goes above the set speed limit, the iPad will notify them that they are passing this limit. This is perfect for speed-limited driving environments, and pushes the iPad as a fully digital car dashboard replacement or complement.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfMAqzxy9CQ]

The application will also tell you how long (in terms of distance) you have travelled, much like a car will tell you in the dashboard, when the application is running and even in the background. If you flick up on the Speed dashboard interface, you are presented with options such as true north and magnetic north for the compass feature, analog or digital presentation for the speed limiter, trip total resetting, and background tracking. The interface of the application is beautifully crafted and appears like a real car dashboard complete with a leather background and chromed-out toggles.

In our real life tests, the application is very accurate against our actual real-life car speeds measured by our actual car dashboards. For anyone living in this digital world, Speed for iPad is the future – we believe of car dashboards. On an iPad, it’s portable, can be held by anyone in the car, and can be your media center with the device’s built-in music player. iPad car dashboard mounts are even already appearing. Something important to note about Speed for iPad is the development process that went into the application. Speed started as one of the initial App Store applications, grew very popular (the app even was promoted by Apple), and has now been completely redesigned and re-written for the iPad with a host of new features. This circle will continue when Speed 2 launches later this year for the iPhone, complete with all the new innovations in this new iPad app.

Speed for iPad is available for $2.99 on the App Store today. You can read more about Speed at the official website. Press release:

High Caffeine Content today announced the immediate availability of Speed for iPad, the long-awaited big-screen redesign of the best-selling speedometer application for iPhone. Speed for iPad is the perfect addition to any vehicle or boat dashboard and includes a speedometer, odometer and compass, along with a map. It also takes full advantage of the beautiful Retina display of the new iPad.

“We set out to completely reinvent Speed for iPad’s form factor, and we think users are going to love it,” said Steven Troughton-Smith, Founder and Lead Developer of High Caffeine Content. “The interface is stunningly simple, with a breakthrough Settings UI that appears as you slide your finger upwards on the display.”

Speed is a simple speedometer for iPad that uses the location data from the GPS to provide a near-perfect representation of how fast you’re actually traveling.

Featuring lush graphics and a clear, legible display, Speed has an inbuilt compass and odometer/tripmeter. With support for miles, kilometers and knots, Speed is the perfect road, sea or air speedometer.

Users can pick between an analog or digital display for speed, and magnetic north or true north for the compass; simply swipe the screen upwards to reveal the settings pane. To stay safe, there’s a Speed Limiter that will sound a warning tone at any speed designated.

Speed can even be set to run in the background, so that it can continue to clock up distance travelled on the odometer. It’s perfect for people who have in-vehicle charging systems for their iPad.

Pricing & Availability

Speed for iPad is available for $2.99 (US) on the iPad App Store and requires an iPad 3G, iPad 2 3G or third generation iPad 4G. It is available in English, French, German, Spanish and Japanese. For more information, please visit: http://www.highcaffeinecontent.com/speed