iPad - page 211

The new iPad makes a great photo studio. It has a 5MP autofocus camera, lets you adjust exposure separately (with a third party app like Camera+), has image stabilization and — like no other camera — has a huge range of editing apps to choose from and use right there in the field.

It is, however, very awkward to hold in one hand while you tap the screen with the other. You end up either almost dropping the thing, or taking a picture of your thumb, or just giving up.

I expect to see camera-friendly cases in the near future. Until then, though, I decided to hack together my own from a discarded iPad case from Speck. And amazingly, it turned out pretty well.

TwelveSouth’s BookBook case for the iPad is a hard, leatherback binder that’s designed to look like a vintage book. It’s handmade and it features a soft, velvety interior that promises to keep your tablet free from scratches and scrapes, while its hard exterior provides impact protection from all angles. It also boasts a fully-adjustable stand using “the oldest trick in the book” — a button and a piece of string.

Because it’s hand distressed, every BookBook case is unique, and TwelveSouth claims that no two look alike. We were more than impressed by the BookBook case for the MacBook Air, so we had high expectations for this one. But did it live up to them?

Earlier this year Apple announced iTunes U, making it clear that Apple intends to make the iPad ubiquitous in academia. The iPad is truly coming into its own as a legitimate alternative to the PC. For students, this means that the iPad is quickly becoming a powerful learning tool, which is good for a lot more than reading.

I sat down with a Boston-based PhD student who, for the past year, has been using her iPad nearly exclusively for her studies. Here are the core peripherals and apps that she recommends in order to supercharge your iPad for use in the academic setting.

One of the big fears CIOs and IT staffers have about the consumerization of IT and BYOD trends is that mobile devices like the iPad and iPhone combined with personal cloud services like iCloud, Google Docs, and Dropbox make it very easy for confidential business data to leave the office and the company network.While this is a definite fear for IT staff, how do most knowledge workers view the risk and the consequences of such so-called data sprawl?

According to a recent study, four out of five workers rank removing confidential data from the office as an offense that should get a person fired and yet 90% believe that it happens on a regular basis.

We’ve shown you a couple collections of Retina-ready wallpapers for your new iPad already, but you haven’t seen some of the best photos available until you check out John Carey’s work. Many of you may already be fans of Carey’s blog/wallpaper site fiftyfootshadows.net. He’s been posting 100% original wallpapers there for desktops, iPhones, iPads, etc. for quite awhile.

Carey recently updated some of his best wallpapers for the iPad’s glorious Retina display. You won’t be disappointed with what he has to offer.

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The video above is probably enough to make iPad 3 owners rush out and buy a copy of AirServer for your big-screen Mac. It shows the difference in the speed of video mirroring natively to the the Apple TV 3 and mirroring to the Mac using AirServer. The first is dreadfully laggy. The second is like playing with a wired controller. But that’s not all: The newest version of AirServer processes the video before displaying it, making for much better results on the big screen.

On “Them, Robot”, last Sunday’s episode of The Simpsons, Mr. Burns briefly pulled out his iPad and gave us all a quick glimpse of his homescreen. So what kind of apps does an old coot like Burns download? Medical apps like Am I Alive and Google Naps, home automation apps like Trap Door and games like Ukelele Hero and Captain Billy’s Whiz-Bang.

My favorite, though? Angry Burns. Fox should actually make that game happen.

[via Gizmodo]

LTE is one of the key features available on the new iPad. All that extra speed can be a great feature for consumers and business users alike, although the ability to burn through data that quickly means that all LTE iPad users need to be more conscious of their data use than with the previous 3G iPads (the same will no doubt be true for the next iPhone).

A new study claims that most iPad Internet access (94%) still takes place over Wi-Fi networks, however. That seems like bad news for carriers and it sounds like comforting news for CIOs and IT professionals worried about unknown iPads in their companies. After all, if only 6% of iPad connections occur over 3G/4G, then most iPads in the office are using a corporate network and can be tracked and monitored to ensure data and network security.

Unfortunately digging into the actual data from the study reveals iPad users with 3G and LTE models are actually spending a lot more than 6% of their time using their cellular connection.

Shortly after the new iPad made its debut earlier this month, it was discovered that the way in which the device calculates its battery life is flawed. Despite telling you its charge is at 100%, your device hasn’t actually finished charging.

New data proves that in fact, your device isn’t finished charging until more than two hours after it reaches “100%,” and if you unplug it before then, you could lose around 1.2 hours of battery life. What’s more, it seems all iOS devices misreport their battery life.

Ever since I got my new iPad last Friday, I have been playing with the great new camera. I’m not one of those luddites that think nobody will ever use a tablet as a camera (note: many of these people probably called the iPad a consumption-only device, or said that you can’t use it to do real work). But I do find the iPad awkward to hold when trying to tap the screen for exposure, focus and the shutter release.

The Padcaster, a forthcoming camera rig for the iPad, might just take care of that.

The iZen Bamboo Keyboard really, really looks like an Apple Bluetooth keyboard with a bunch of bamboo caps stuck on top to the existing keys. And oddly enough, there’s nothing in the Kickstarter description to say otherwise.

There are a few telltale clues, though. This keyboard has iPad-specific keys that mimic the home button, search and slideshow functions, and comes with a li-ion battery.

In its first three days of availability, Apple’s new iPad sold an incredible 3 million devices, so it’s no surprise to us that it already accounts for 6.6% of all Apple tablets accessing the internet. That’s according to a new report from mobile ad network Chitika Insights, which monitored internet usage over a 24-hour period.

The first thing that hit me when I powered on my new iPad wasn’t the retina-ness of the display — that takes a little time to seep into your brain. No, it was the colors. They seemed more contrasty, more saturated. More colorful. But just what was going on? Jeff Yurek, of the Dot Color blog, did some scientific digging.

Dictation has been one of my favorite features of the new iPad. It’s a great way to type quick notes or search queries out without having to use the keyboard. Underneath the surface though, dictation is much more than just a simple feature for jotting notes down. In this video, I’ll show you some of the hidden features of voice dictation on the new iPad and iPhone 4S.

UPDATE: We’ve chosen our winners and here they are: Tamer Rashdan, Bryan Salazar, Maria Deleon, Werner Pretorius. Contact us at [email protected] to get your redemption codes. Congratulations to our winners and thanks to all who entered!

You’ve been putting together presentations, but they’re just not “wowing” you — or your audience. Slidevana (which works with Keynote for Mac, iPad and iPhone) will give you that edge. And Cult of Mac Deals is going to give away 4 copies of this stellar slide deck creator!

That’s right — Cult of Mac Deals is giving away 4 copies of Slidevana to our readers. Slidevana allows you to spend less time making the slides for your presentation so that you can spend more time on what you should be spending it on: Working on conveying your message. You can learn all about Slidevana by checking out our latest post on the app.

Complementing the launch of the new Apple TV, an iOS software update made some significant changes to the Apple TV user interface after the new iPad keynote. Over the last couple weeks the new UI has received a heavy dose of criticism from fans who feel like the new interface is a step backwards, and it turns out that those criticisms may be true. Literally.

According to one ex-Apple TV Engineer, the new Apple TV UI has been on the table for about five years, but Steve Jobs himself allegedly didn’t like it and rejected its implementation. Now that Jobs isn’t around “to say no to bad design,” the UI was resurrected.

A new app for the iPad, The Guitar Collection: George Harrison, is rather like a little pocket book of the former Beatles’ most famous axes. It features the history, pics, guitar model specifications, and historic photographic images of the iconic instruments.

But unlike a book, it’s a multimedia feast full of 3D models, music clips, and videos of George and his pals talking rock ‘n’ roll. It’s a rich potpourri of sounds and visuals for Beatlemaniacs. Trouble is, there’s so much missing.

If you’re selling, giving away, or scrapping an old iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you’re likely to plug it into iTunes and hit the restore button to remove all of your personal content and reset the device’s software back to factory settings. But did you know that you can do all that without iTunes?

Here’s how to reset your iOS device and remove all of its content and settings without iTunes.

Earlier this week, we highlighted the growing need for companies to develop more comprehensive approaches to iPhones, iPads, and other mobile devices than simply purchasing and implementing a mobile device management console. The device-only approach isn’t always a solution in itself and there’s a growing trend of focusing on managing the information and apps on an iOS device instead of (or in addition to) the device itself.

As this multi-tiered model becomes more common, businesses are typically looking at multiple solutions, which is prompting companies in this space to develop strategic partnerships or consider acquisitions as a way of offer businesses a more integrated approach. Two instances of this were the announcement of Good and Box partnering for secure data and enterprise cloud storage and Symantec’s acquisition of Nukona and Odyssey.

Another partnership was announced yesterday between MDM vendor MobileIron and enterprise wireless firm iPass.

Apple’s main supplier pal Foxconn is massive. With multiple mega-factories that can include up to 400,000 workers living on a cramped “campus,” it’s no surprise that Foxconn has quickly become one of the biggest companies in the world. They employ more people than Apple. Not only that, but they’re actually the 10th largest employer in the world, which is freaking enormous when you consider that the US Department of Defense is the world’s largest employer with 3.2 million employees. Foxconn, on the other hand, is just a few notches below them with 1.2million employees. Amazing!

So you just bought yourself a new Android tablet, and you wish you’d gone for the iPad. Well, that’s too bad. But you’ll be pleased to hear that you can still get your hands on the iPad’s home screen, thanks to Espier Launcher HD.

Process is a new take on photo editing apps. It’s simple, fast, powerful and has some very clever ideas about how we edit our photos. The in-app introduction describes it as a “non-linear editor for photos,” and that’s not far from the mark.

You and I may hate Facebook, but with almost a billion users, it’s the place where most people put their photos. And now, at least you won’t have to totally slum it if you visit: The customer-hostile social network will now serve hi-res photographs, but not — oddly — to the iPad.

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Today is new iPad day in the rest of the world. At 8AM local time in additional countries across Europe, Mexico, New Zealand and even Macau. As in the US and the other countries in the first wave of launches,. there appear to be plenty of iPads to go around.

Apple and Samsung have battled in court over the design of a number of Samsung’s Galaxy products, which Apple believes were “slavishly” copied from the iPhone and iPad. However, the Korean company’s chief of mobile design maintains that the Galaxy is “original from the beginning,” and believes that one day, he will match Jony Ive by designing a truly iconic product.