iPad - page 115

In the past three years, Apple has dared to be dull.

During Apple’s best years, between 2007 and 2010, Apple introduced the first iPhone and the first iPad, two world-changing products that now define the company (and bring in most of its revenue). These products, along with their touch interfaces and apps stores, were a shock to the industry.

That’s great, Apple. But what have you done for me lately?

Here’s one theory about how Apple works: The company finds a horrible content consumption experience. They figure out how the experience can be made wonderful. They work on the products until they’re ready, both from product quality and price perspectives. Then they ship it and spend the next few years refining and perfecting the original vision.

If that oversimplification about how Apple works is accurate, then Apple isn’t really in full control of when its groundbreaking new products ship. They have to wait for technology, such as Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), or for various industries to come around to making a critical mass of content deals.

In the past three years, every Apple announcement has been preceded by speculation and rumor that Apple would at long last announce an iWatch, an iTV set and other products that would signal a radical new product category for Apple. And every announcement ended in disappointment. Every announcement was about refinement of old products, rather than bold launches of new products.

Will Apple ever enter new markets again, including the ones perennially rumored?

I say they will. The fact that they haven’t shipped the long-rumored iWatch or iTV, for example, makes perfect sense from a readiness perspective.

In fact, I think the next three years will be twice as awesome as the iPhone-iPad years, in the sense that Apple will break into four new businesses. Why? Because the technology and content deals will fall into place during this time.

Here’s what I think is going to happen.

I have one of Doxie’s neat candybar-shaped paper scanners, and it’s great for getting through piles of paper. I can scan bills, flyers, photos and even whole books – I ripped all the pages from a beloved but falling-apart cookbook and scanned the pages one at a time to make a PDF.

But for anything less sheet-shaped, it’s useless. And often the next best option – your iPhone’s camera – isn’t much better. You have to focus it, hold it steady, and somehow wedge the pages of your Moleskine notebook open with one hand while lining up your scanning app with the other

That’s the slot that Doxie’s Flip wants to fill. It anything that’s not a big sheet of paper. Although it can kinda do that too.

Continue reading

After Apple announced the iPhone 5s in gold, we felt sure that the latest iPads would be available in the same color, but that wasn’t to be the case. But don’t be disappointed. As long as you have lots of spare cash that you’re itching to spend, you can buy a gold-plated iPad Air or iPad mini from Goldgenie with prices starting at just $1,860.

Last month, Facebook released an update that allowed iPhone users to edit posts and comments and even preview all of their changes. It was a small, but welcome update. Unfortunately, it was also exclusive to the iPhone, but now users of Facebook for iPad can avail themselves of the same trick.

Apple has topped the list of world’s most valuable brands for the third straight year in a row, and is now worth almost twice as much as any other brand on the planet, Forbes reports. The Cupertino company is now valued at $104.3 billion, up 20 percent over last year, which puts it way out in front of Microsoft, Samsung, and even Google.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrJ4LNZrIkM

I’m a genuine believer that even if you have an iPad, there’s room for an e-ink Kindle in your life if you love to read. No one is questioning the design or hardware superiority of the iPad, but the truth is, it’s the distinction between a general use device and a specialized device. An iPad may game, check email, play video, and more, but a Kindle is perfectly suited to the one task it’s meant for — reading books — in a way that the iPad never really can be.

It’s hard for me to really get too bent out of shape about Amazon’s newest ad for the Kindle Paperwhite (a fantastic e-reader), showing users trying to read books on the iPad and Kindle in bright outdoor light. The iPad is criticized for the constant glare bouncing off the screen, while the Kindle is praised for being easy-on-the-eyes.

That’s all true. The iPad kind of sucks at outdoor reading compared to the Kindle. But in the dark, it can do so much more.

The question of whether there exists such a thing as an objectively perfect work of art remains the stuff of artistic scholarship and debates, but one particular artist feels they’ve cracked the question of how to improve a time-honored masterpiece — by adding in a number of Apple products.

If you’re a programmer who needs to learn iOS, a student, someone with a great app idea, or a computer science teacher who wants to add iOS to their skill set then the latest Cult of Mac Deals offering is going to be right up your alley.

With over four hours of video instruction, numerous lab exercises and dozens of code examples, The iPhone and iPad App Development Course gets you ready to create your own iOS Apps for the iPhone, iPad or both. And it’s available for 50% off for a limited time – just $49 – thanks to Cult of Mac Deals.

The genre of tower defense has been fairly represented on iOS over the past several years, with notable entries like Fieldrunners and Kingdom Rush turning in fantastic examples of fixed and variable path classic tower defense gameplay.

iPad-only RoboMouse HD, then, is a new, well-balanced entry to the genre, and while it brings nothing innovative to the table, it’s adorable and provides a solid set of features that make it an essential entry to any tower defense fan’s gaming library.

Getting kids to read 19th century literature is virtually impossible unless you attach a grade to it these days. While I was content with thick tomes of Brönte(s) and Austen in high school, my classmates were quick to avoid most books not written by popular authors within the last 20 years. If only someone made an infinite runner with book passages as the levels so children would have to look at words when playing games!

Stride & Prejudice by No Crusts Interactive is a surprisingly simple yet elegant way to read Pride & Prejudice without abandoning your love of repeatedly tapping your phone. You control the novel’s heroine Elizabeth (Lizzy) Bennet as she leaps daringly from sentence to sentence. Depending on which gameplay mode selected, you can actually read all of Pride & Prejudice at a leisurely pace.

Drawing apps on the iPad are pretty neat, but it always seemed to me that they cleaved to strongly to the limitations of the physical world. Why, for example, should your piece of virtual paper be limited in size and shape like a piece of paper paper? It shouldn’t. And that’s the premise of Sketchology, a vector app with an almost infinite canvas.

Today Twelve South unveiled its new BookBook Travel Journal for the iPad, a leather-bound traveling case that has the vintage look Twelve South is known for. While the outside has the appearance of an old book, the inside of the case allows for storing headphones, cables, and other accessories.

We’re not sure why Google just doesn’t change the name of their Google Search app for iOS, as it does pretty much everything Google Now does on Android, but this new update is pretty fantastic, whatever you want to call it.

Google Search is “now” updated to version 3.1.0, with a whole new set of features, including Notifications, Reminders, new Cards, and a Siri-like Handsfree voice. This last bit lets you command your iPhone to do stuff with the phrase, “OK Google.”

How cool is that?

Thinking about upgrading your old iPad to an iPad Air, or a new iPad mini with Retina display? Well, Target wants to help. The retailer is now offering customers at least $200 in store credit when they trade in any old iPad, including the original model.

While the iPad’s Retina display has traditionally been considered the finest tablet display on the market, that’s no longer the case thanks to Amazon. Its new high-end Kindle Fire HDX has the best tablet display ever tested by DisplayMate expert Dr. Raymond Soneira, “significantly outperforming” the iPad Air’s in several key areas.

In more welcome airport-related news than the reports that Apple’s Maps app steers people the wrong way across Fairbanks Airport taxiway, Apple has released an update (version 1.3.3) of its AirPort Utility — the app which allows you to manage your Wi-Fi base stations, including AirPort Express, AirPort Extreme, and AirPort Time Capsule, from the comfort of your iOS device.

One of the better ways to see what’s coming up in any calendar is the list view. It’s a handy way to see, at a quick glance, the major events of the next few days.

Unfortunately, Apple has taken this view from its new iOS 7 Calendar app and hidden it away.

Here’s how to get it back.

Most developers have had their iOS 7 apps ready for weeks but Apple is still racing to update all of its own apps to mesh better with iOS 7’s new look. The Remote app for iPhone and iPad is the latest Apple app to get the iOS 7 treatment as Apple just published version 4.0 to the App Store.

The updated app comes with an all new iOS 7-style look as well as support for iTunes 11.1 but there’s no mention of new features in the release notes so it looks like we’re just getting a facelift for now. iPhone and iPad owners can use the device to control Apple TV as well as remotely access computers on the same Home Sharing account to play music, queue up additional songs, create playlists and more.

The new update can be found in the App Store for free.

Source: iTunes

Last week, we reported that Samsung had beaten Apple and claimed the top spot in J.D. Power’s latest tablet satisfaction survey. On closer inspection of its findings, it was unclear how the South Korean company had earned first place after its tablets received lower ratings than the iPad in so many areas.

J.D. Power has since explained why that’s the case.

The iPad Air might be almost a third lighter than the iPad 4, but Apple insists it gets all the same battery life as previous generations, and it looks like the evidence proves it: not only does the iPad Air get the same 10 hours of battery life in general, but it also gets an incredible 24 hours as an LTE hotspot.

If you believe the reports, Apple is currently working on a way of charging iOS devices using solar panels. If you’re not content to wait, however, and want a quick-and-easy means of charging your iPhone or iPad right now, you might want to consider investing in this Indiegogo crowd funding campaign to create a mobile wireless charging solution for Apple products.

Based on the increasingly popular Qi inductive electrical power transfer system, iQi Mobile Wireless is set to bring true, low-cost wireless charging to iOS device. This is done without the fuss of plugging and unplugging wires, since charging is achieved simply by placing your iPhone or iPad on a Koolpuck charger.

iPads might seem the perfect device for government meetings (if only for a quick game of Angry Birds when things get boring), but not if you’re a member of the UK Cabinet.

Don’t look now, but kids want iPhones for Christmas. Well, a third of them do, anyway.

A survey of 12- to 17-year-olds conducted by Ebates found that an iPhone tops the wishlist. One third — specifically 32% — of those surveyed want an iPhone. (Some 12% want a Samsung Galaxy phone.)

Ho, ho, hold on a second. Is this a good idea? Should children “own” wireless gadgets?

If not, why not? And if so, which one?

Well, I’m going to tell you.

This story first appeared in Cult of Mac Magazine.

It’s easy to think of David Scott Leibowitz, whose work fronts this week’s magazine cover,  as kind of a renaissance man 2.0: the artist, app developer and author is a tireless champion of the new when it comes to visual arts.

[Editor’s note: This review has been stickied to the top of Cult of Mac. Scroll down for more news.]

Let’s face it, we’ve been waiting for Apple to make drastic changes to the iPad since it released the third-generation device in early 2012. While it did introduce a high-resolution Retina display with that model, and it has made nice improvements in speed and other areas since then, we’ve all been clamoring for improvements to its design.

We’ve got those with the iPad Air — and a whole lot more. The new slate looks just like a larger version of the iPad mini. It maintains its 9.7-inch Retina display, but it has narrower bezels, a substantially thinner design — it is now just as thin as the iPad mini at 7.5mm — and it’s 28% lighter than its predecessor at just one pound.

In addition to that, we get Apple’s incredible 64-bit A7 processor that promises up to two times the power and graphics performance of the A6X, the new M7 motion coprocessor that made its debut in the iPhone 5s last month, and two W-Fi antennas with MIMO technology. And all of this will cost you just $100 more than the iPad 2.