media - page 2

If you’re looking for another alternative to sharing media content and making free phone calls over WiFi, you might want to check out Sidecar for Android and iOS. The recently released app allows users a plethora of sharing options as long as all recepients have the app installed. If you try to make a call to someone who doesn’t yet have the app, it will send them a text message asking them to check out the app. Features of Sidecar include

The unfortunate reality of trying to replace cable with video subscription services such as Netflix or Hulu is that, well… they kind of suck. Okay, so that’s my opinion and it’s completely possible that you’re happy with the Walmart bargain bin selection of movies Netflix has to offer, or being last to find out that The Island was just purgatory and the whole point of LOST was, well… pointless. There’s many reasons why I’ve been unable to cut cable out of my life, and if I’m going to be paying for it every month — I might as well get my money’s worth. That’s where the Slingbox SOLO comes in.

It’s pretty clear that digital distribution is going to play a large role in the future of magazines and newspapers. That doesn’t mean, however, that print editions are going away any time soon. For the foreseeable future, we’re likely to see print/digital hybrids while consumers and publishers test the waters of both digital products and distribution channels.

The road to digital hasn’t been a smooth ride for many publications. Part of the reason is the lack of resources being devoted to creating engaging and immersive digital content that doesn’t feel as if you’re simply reading a PDF of the print edition.

One big area where publisher are still failing is advertising – despite excellent interactive ad systems like Apple iAd, publishers are still stuck in a print mentality when it comes to ads. In fact, according to a new study, publications often simply toss the exact same print-formatted ads into digital editions that run in their print counterparts.

Dragging media files to iTunes after you’ve downloaded them is so last year. All the hip kids get their downloaded files into iTunes without any intermediate steps. Here’s how to be one of the auto-adding-to-itunes elite.

Stock of the Apple TV has been quickly dwindling across Apple retail stores in the U.S. in recent months, fueling speculation that the device will soon be replaced by a new model with the “J33” codename that recently popped up in the company’s iOS 5.1 beta software.

One report claims that 98% of Apple retail stores in the U.S. now have no Apple TV stock at all.

For years we’ve heard a lot of hype about SSDs and how they’re going to change computing, but their progress has been slow, and the masses have been getting impatient. Well CES 2012 will be the start of SSDs officially entering into mainstream use thanks to Apple Inc. The best purchase I made in 2011 was when I replaced my MacBook Pro with the new 11″ MacBook Air. Not only is the MacBook Air lighter than any laptop I’ve owned, it’s also powerful enough to do some really awesome things I’d never thought possible on a miniature computer (like playing graphic intensive games like Star Wars the Old Republic). Most of these technological marvels are all thanks to Apple’s inclusion on SSDs in the MacBook Air lineup. Of course, Apple didn’t invent the SSD, nor were they the first company to use them, but they’re responsible for bringing SSDs to the masses at an affordable price.

After the critical success of Audyssey’s South of Market dock last year, Audyssey eventually released their next product, the Lower East Side Media Speakers ($250), in October of this year.

This time, Audyssey has dropped the radical approach to design it used for the SOMA dock — with its unusual, back-to-back speaker configuration — in favor of a much more conventional, yet still attractive, form. Audyssey left three things unchanged though: Like the SOMA, the LES speakers exhibit a good deal of quality, and incorporate what Audyssey calls their “Smart Speaker” technology. And like the SOMA, these speakers are a bit pricier than their contemporaries. So the question is: Do they deliver?

It seems reasonable by now to expect Apple’s iPhone 5 to launch this September. Considering all the speculation we’ve waded through over the past few months, a September launch has certainly been the most consistent claim. And while we’re no closer to an exact launch date, the China Times pinpoints the second week of September for the launch of the fifth-generation device, and later this fall for the launch of the iPad 3.

No matter how many months of rumors and insider reports precede an anticipated Apple announcement, it’s probable that, when Steve Jobs actually reveals the product on stage, it’s going to be radically different than what people are expecting… but iCloud could be the most radical deviation yet between the fancy of pre-announcement hype and the reality of Apple’s finished product.

What people expected from iCloud was a streaming cloud locker for your media collection: iCloud would scan your iTunes library and automatically mirror them on a central server, allowing you to stream any song you owned to any device you owned without being bothered with local storage.

What people got? iTunes Match. It scans and matches your iTunes library in the cloud, sure, but there is no streaming: any time you want to listen to an album that’s not on your iPhone or iPad, you’ve got to download it from the cloud onto your device.

No streaming? What was Apple thinking?

London’s Financial Times has stuck its corporate finger up at Apple with the unveiling of a slick – really slick – webapp that looks amazing on an iPad.

Everyone who owns an Apple TV loves AirPlay – it’s a fantastic way of streaming your moves and music straight to your TV that was previously a luxury only iOS and iTunes users could enjoy. However, thanks to the doubleTwist software, users can now send content to the Apple TV from their Android smartphones.

The doubleTwist software for Mac & PC advertises itself as “the iTunes for Android” and allows you to wirelessly sync your iTunes playlists, photos and videos to your Android phone with the accompanying Android application. Its most recent update introduced the ability to stream all of this content to the Apple TV over AirPlay.

The iPad is just about perfect for reading magazines; surprising, then, that more publishers haven’t come out with iPad-specific apps, right? Thankfully, publishers seem to be catching on, and last week saw two tricked-out versions of women’s magazines debut as apps on the iPad.

With all due respect, this was originally intended to be a gallery post dedicated to discovering the magic of MC Escher, a 99¢ app that brings users hi-res imagery of the artwork that’s decorated millions of dorm rooms and student apartments worldwide over the years. The app incudes two mindbending games as well, and for a buck, it’s got to be good value. MC Escher on the iPhone and iPad — how could you go wrong?

However, digging around for something to say about the Escher app, iFractal surfaced. It’s a free app that allows users to play around with renderings of the Mandelbrot and Julia sets of images derived from mathematical visualization theory. There’s also Fractals, a $2.99 app that seems to offer the same thing, with perhaps a finer manipulative granularity — but in the end, these apps warrant a gallery.