Ever used your iOS device to imagine yourself as Lt. Nyota Uhura receiving an urgent communique from Starfleet? Then you are in luck — the second version of the official Star Trek PADD app is now available with native iPhone 5 and iPad mini support.
The app turns your smartphone or tablet into a PADD, or Personal Access Display Device, a handheld computer interface used from the 22nd to 24th centuries by organizations including Starfleet, the Klingon Empire and the Cardassian Union.
Developer ArcTouch announced the new version of the Star Trek PADD app in a press release that is delightfully incomprehensible to anyone who did not grow up following the Star Trek franchise:
‘Our team implemented a focused chroniton particle generator to open a temporal wormhole to the 24th century,’ said Captain Eric Shapiro from ArcTouch. ‘We condensed 20 billion gigaquads of data about aliens, planets, and technology into a databank and created an app to access it.’
The PADD app provides beings from every quadrant of the galaxy with the ultimate mobile “Trekkie” experience, including access to data spanning from Star Trek: The Original Series through to Star Trek: Enterprise and the related movies of The Original Series and The Next Generation. The app features a rich database of information, full screen images, actual sound effects from the series, and an authentic LCARS experience.
The original version for iPad was a top seller in the App Store and the winner of the “Best Sci-Fi App” Media Vanguard Award. In addition to iPhone 5 and iPad mini support, version 2 includes an updated databank with over 170 new entries, including one for Gorgan (possibly the last known inhabitant of the planet Triacus); enhancements to terrestrial data feeds from Facebook and Twitter; and under 50 megaquads of data for initial download stream (or to use the language of the 21st century, the app can now be installed over a 3G, 4G or LTE connections, without requiring Wi-Fi). The Star Trek PADD app also features what is probably the only good use for Siri: the Starbase Intelligent Response Integration for voice-activated searching.
The Star Trek PADD app is now available for a few bars of gold-pressed latinum (or $4.99 for iPad, $1.99 for iPhone and iPod touch in 21st century U.S. dollars) in the App Store.