iPad - page 188

Over the past few months we’ve learned a lot about the mobile ad market from a variety of studies. We know that iOS users are more likely to respond to ads than Android users, and that there’s often a big return on ads designed specifically for the iPad and other tablets. We’ve also learned that many ad agencies haven’t yet realized the value in either of those data points.

One company that sees the value of mobile ads is Universal Pictures. Universal has created an interactive mobile campaign for its upcoming “Savages” – an Oliver Stone thriller that opens a week from Friday (July 6) – that ticks all the right boxes for mobile ad success.

Apple’s iPhone chargers certainly aren’t the biggest accessories in the world, but accompanied with their wires, they can be a pain to travel with — especially when they get tangled up in your make up (not that I’d know about that). But with the JuiceBuddy from Pacific Productions, there is no need for wires.

This little box attaches to your keychain and provides you with an iPhone charger wherever and whenever you need it most. Simply plug it directly into the wall and then dock your iPhone in the top.

Despite the success of Gears of War on consoles, it is in fact Infinity Blade for iPad which holds the title for Epic Games’s most profitable game of all time. The popular sword fighter, which has been showcased at a number of Apple keynotes over the years, has earned a whopping $30 million since its debut just 18 months ago.

Judge Lucy Koh handed Apple an injunction against Samsung selling their Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the US in the latest round of legal warfare between the two companies. Her decision comes after her previous denial of Apple’s request as well as a federal appeals court ruling for her to reconsider the request.

The East Alton school district in southwest Illinois announced earlier this week that it will be launching a one-ton-one iPad deployment for all students in grades three through eight (plus shared iPads for kindergarten through second grade). The announcement is far from unique. Many schools across the U.S. and throughout the world have already launched similar programs – some of them on a much larger scale.

One of the interesting points about East Alton’s decision, however, is that the school district isn’t buying the iPads for its students – a least not initially. Instead, the district has signed a four-year leasing agreement for the iPads. The decision highlights Apple’s often overlooked leasing programs for both business education customers.

You know those apps which turn you photos into pencil drawings or watercolors or oil paintings? Let’s face it — almost every single one of them is junk (iPhoto’s paint effect is a rare exception). Which is why Popsicolor is going to blow your socks off.

There are several iPad cases which have straps to let you fasten them to the headrests of your car seats so people in the back can watch movies. The trouble is, they’re almost all bulky and ugly, as they try to cram too much into one case.

X-Doria’s Drive-In is also bulky and ugly, but as it’s designed as a permanent addition to your car, who cares?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAC1_VcP-AU

This is the R* Case, and it might just be my new favorite iPad skin, based only on this video. And not just because the case itself, with two old 80s-skateboard-style rails on the back, looks very useful. It’s also because the video itself is an engaging mix of hard work and high-cheese.

San Diego’s Unified Schools District has spent $15 million on almost 26,000 iPads that will be distributed across 340 classrooms this fall in what is reportedly one of the largest educational iPad purchases to date. The devices will be used by fifth- and eighth-grade students, in addition to some in high schools.

BYOD and ever-increasing mobility are business trends that are forcing many organizations to take a fresh look at security. The idea of employees connecting from home, coffee shops, and even planes has led to an overall increasing awareness of the need to secure remote connections. At the same time, business data residing on the iPhones, iPads, and other mobile devices of those employees is causing the IT industry to take a fresh look at mobile device security.

That is, of course, a good thing. With the focus on mobile security, however, many IT organizations are letting the security and overall design of their core networks to become outdated – and exposing their companies to incredible risks in the process.

It’s taken a good three months, but Words With Friends HD has finally gained support for the new iPad. The version 5.0 update, which just hit the App Store this morning — now comes with high-resolution artwork optimized for the Retina display, and support for landscape orientation.

Keeping your projects organized is hard; whether they’re for home, school, or work, projects tend to take on a life of their own. A good task manager can be essential to keeping the project moving, on time, and with a minimum of stress. wunderlist is available for the iPad, is free, and has some great features to boot, making it an obvious choice for many of us who need to manage our projects better.

Apple has put a lot of work into developing its own secure messaging platform. With Mountain Lion and the Messages app that Apple rolled out in iOS 5, Apple is setting up its iMessage platform with a lot potential advantages for consumers and business users alike. For business, the always available and secure messaging is huge. Messages and conversations can be found on an employee’s iPhone, iPad, home iMac, work MacBook Air – that’s taking the concept of RIM’s BlackBerry Messenger service to a higher level.

For consumers, the great features are the integration of non-phone devices like the iPad and iPod touch and reduced reliance on carriers for texting, which can translate to cost savings (depending on mobile carrier/plan).

While most of us still use SMS to send text messages, there’s a distinct trend in shifting to using solutions like Apple’s Message platform.

Believe it or not, there are over one million iPhone users in the United States who cannot access 3G networks because their carrier of choice is T-Mobile. Apple’s smartphone isn’t officially available on T-Mobile right now — because the operator’s unique 3G network isn’t supported by the handset’s wireless chip — but people choose to use its 2G network instead.

That situation will change for the new iPhone, however, because T-Mobile has announced it will launch a new LTE network next year.

Despite countless rumors suggesting it was on its way, when Microsoft unveiled its new Surface tablet late last week, a lot of people were surprised. It was a strange move by the Redmond-based company, who has traditionally focused solely on software and allowed other companies to worry about the hardware.

So why did Microsoft build its own tablet?

According to one of the company’s former employees, it took hardware matters into its own hands when it realized it couldn’t rely on PC makers to make the same bets Apple was making. You see, Apple has taken some incredible steps to make its iPad the behemoth it is today. And rival companies just weren’t willing to gamble.

Did you enter the Snapheal iPad giveaway? Mike first posted about it a month ago and the response has been nothing short of tremendous, but all good things must come to an end. People have been winning SnapHeal every week (I got a copy and it is bring amazing) and now it’s coming up to the big draw for the iPad. So…

There is only one day left to enter the contest!

So get to it and enter!—Snapheal New iPad Giveaway – iPhone Hacks Deals

It’s our inalienable right as citizens of the modern world to take a vacation or a holiday, right? Well, instead of packing your whole family off to an all-inclusive Club Med vacation or Disney cruise, how about taking on one of the most time-honored summer vacation traditions, the road-trip. Long drives through scenic countryside with loving families and family pets are some of the best memories we all have, right? Right?

Well, at least we have iOS devices with us these days to both combat boredom and make sure we arrive where we want to. Here’s a veritable cornucopia of apps and ideas for road-tripping this summer, iOS-style.

In a post on the official Google Mac blog today, editor Scott Knaster wrote a final piece that closed the Mac-centric web log for good. Citing the current mainstream popularity of Apple, Macintosh computers, and of course the iPad, iPhone and iOS, Knaster says that he realizes that a special Mac blog is no longer needed.

Despite its continuing downward spiral, many IT professionals continue to acknowledge that RIM’s BlackBerry platform — or more accurately its BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) — remains the most secure mobile platform on the market. That’s a fact RIM hypes every chance it gets. Usually RIM points out that BES supports over 500 security and management policies. That’s roughly ten times the number of discrete management options that Apple has built into iOS.

While that number sounds impressive, the real difference between BlackBerry management and iOS management isn’t really about the number of policies. In many ways, it isn’t even about what IT can or can’t manage. The real difference is a cultural divide in the way mobile devices and mobile management is perceived.

Many IT departments are under intense pressure to develop and implement a range of mobility initiatives. Those initiatives often span a range of IT disciplines. There’s the effort to develop internal apps, provide access to new and legacy systems from mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad, the need to manage and support users devices as part of BYOD programs, and the need to develop customer-facing solutions like mobile-oriented sites and native apps.

With so many pressures hitting IT organizations at the same, compromises are being made because of tight deadlines and budgets. According to security expert Jeff Williams, that push to get solutions out as quickly as possible may result in solutions that have major security flaws in them.

As has been discussed in the past, the general consensus among those in the tech industry seems to be that the only way to compete with the iPad is to make your product cheaper than it.

This was moderately successful for devices such as the Kindle Fire, which sold in respectable numbers, but fell off after a short amount of time, even though it retailed for only $199. If history is anything to base expectations off of, the Microsoft Surface may be in trouble. The Next Web is reporting today that Microsoft’s entry into the tablet market may cost considerably more than the iPad.

Whether squirreling away a pistol, a bottle of Laphroaig or the true secret of the Mummy’s Curse, leathery hollowed-out tomes are a staple hiding place for both the bibliophile and posturing quasi-literate alike. And no wonder: there are few hiding places that are attached with the same sort of pungent and mysterious romanticism as an empty book.

For the last couple years, TwelveSouth has been trying to apply some of that mystery, romanticism and pungence with their line of BookBook cases for Apple devices. The cases, which protect your Apple device or computer in a leather-bound cover that could pass for an old folio if you don’t squint at the title too hard, are undeniably a little precious, but I’ve also found time and time again that they generate a lot of compliments from strangers.

Some of TwelveSouth’s BookBook experiments have been better than others. For example, we really loved the BookBook Case for the MacBook Air, but thought there were a lot of problems with the BookBook for iPad.

TwelveSouth must have been paying attention, because they’ve released an updated version of the BookBook for iPad, and it addresses pretty much all of our criticisms of the first model, finally turning it into a case that you can truly love, even if it does still have a few problems.

Enterprise app stores are becoming a common feature in many business that have embraced BYOD and mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad. An enterprise app store offers two core advantages: it allows users to easily install apps developed internally and it allows IT managers and others to offer a set of recommended apps from public sources like Apple’s iOS App Store.

Given the thousands of business and productivity apps available for iOS devices (not to mention profession-specific apps in other categories), providing guidance to users can help get them started with the best tools quickly and easily. The tricky part, however, is deciding which public apps to include in an enterprise app store.

Plenty of people have offered their thoughts and opinions about Microsoft’s Surface devices after the company unveiled the two tablets earlier this week. One particular thread of conversation has been what Surface means for the iPad in businesses and enterprises. One piece that stood out to me was Justin Watt’s blog post Goliath Wants David’s Market.

Watt offers an interesting and well written argument that Surface may find success in many companies because they are still using legacy applications and processes – some of which may have originated long before Windows XP and OS X and have been patched countless times to over the years or decades to continue functioning. His core argument is  that many iPad users access these tools using virtual desktop solutions like Citrix Receiver. As a result, at least for some tasks, the iPad functions as a Windows tablet. That could give Surface and other Windows tablets an edge over the iPad if they can directly deal with the legacy code involved or deliver the same virtual desktop experience.

The truth, however, is that many companies are chugging along on legacy solutions that were never designed to work with devices like the iPad. In fact, some widely used legacy systems have roots that weren’t even designed to work with Windows! In many companies, IT has been able to keep the age and state of those systems under wraps. But the iPad, and now the iPad versus Surface discussion, is now pushing that dirty little secret into the light of day.

For all the buzz about the Microsoft Surface, we don’t know really know the most important things about it yet. We don’t know when it’ll be released. We don’t know how much it’ll cost. As nice as the Surface looks, Microsoft didn’t even say if it would come with 3G, let alone with LTE. And according to Bloomberg, the reason they didn’t announce it is because the Surface won’t: it’s WiFi-only.