iPad - page 247

Visualize Apple has one of those huge monster trucks crushing its competition and you get the picture one analyst is sharing with investors. Fueling the Cupertino, Calif. firm’s onslaught is an incessant introduction of products hungrily awaited by consumers. “With the introductions ahead of the holidays, we expect a monster [December quarter] from Apple,” the Wall Street expert writes Thursday. What’s even worse for rivals mangled by Apple, the products just keep coming.

Apple is set to launch a new pilot program for retail employees that will allow them to borrow an iPad for up to a week. (Yes, a whole week!) The initiative is intended to give staff a better understanding of the product so that they can be more helpful to customers who want to know about the device.

I’m a massive fan of the Back to the Future series from Telltale Games, and if you haven’t already tried them for yourself, there’s no better time to start. All five iPad games are now on sale for just $2.99 each.

I was seriously shocked when I saw this: Snapseed, probably the most elegant iOS photo editing app at the App Store, has been knocked down from $5 — to zero. It’s free.

Last year everyone was pretty excited about the Clamcase for the iPad. Excited enough it seems that the company has revised the product to work with the iPad 2. Previously I felt that the MacBook Air would make a better replacement for an iPad stuffed into a keyboard case yet people still wanted to convert their iPad to a laptop. It appears that the desire to do this continues into 2011. There are a plethora of keyboard cases to wrap your iPad 2 in and in this review we’ll take a look at the Clamcase for the iPad 2 – The Trooper Limited edition ($149).

Apple seems inoculated against the economic virus besetting PC sales. Indeed, sales of iPhones and iPads make shares of the Cupertino, Calif. tech giant worth $520, a Goldman Sachs analyst told investors Wednesday.

On your next flight, along with an extra pair of socks and a hefty dose of patience, you are likely to take your iPhone or iPad to the airport, leaving you laptop at home. More than eight out of ten mobile devices used in airports carry the Apple logo, according to a study released Wednesday.

Chinese pirates beware: Apple has more patents and it knows how to use them. China granted the tech giant 40 patents covering the iPad, iPhone and even its retail stores. Long bedeviled by faux iPhones and retail location ripoffs, the Cupertino, Calif. company now has legal protection for its popular products.

In the latest chapter of RIM’s slow-motion withdrawal from the tablet market, a key supplier of the PlayBook cuts its production line in half amid a “drastically shrinking” market for anything not Apple. Last week, the Canadian smartphone maker announced selling only a fraction of the units Wall Street expected.

Okay, so not all of us use FaceTime for sleazy video calls, but either way, you’ll be glad to hear that your FaceTime calls really are encrypted — just like Apple promised back in July 2010 — as long as you use the right type of connection.

Apple has partnered with the Teach for America program and donated 9,000 first gen iPads to teachers that work in impoverished and dangerous schools. The donated iPads come from customers that gave to Apple’s public service program during the iPad 2 launch.

Many consumers opt to resale their used Apple devices when a new generation is released, but the people that gave to Apple’s public service program have helped to give iPads to teachers working in low-income communities throughout the US.

iPads are the new no. 2 pencil, heading out in droves to teach everyone from kindergarteners to college students what’s what. (Minor drawbacks compared to the pencil: you can’t chew on the magical device and need more skill to launch it at fellow pupils).

Cult of Mac wanted to know how those iPads get into schools – which ones want them, how they get paid for, what schools are doing with them – so we caught up with Brayden Wardrop.

Wardrop is a CTO for Utah-based company called iSchool (yeah, iKnow!), currently getting those tablet computers to schools in Texas, Colorado, Utah, Minesota and Nevada.

Wardrop manages around 500 iPad2s, 50 Macbook Pros and 75 iMacs for Colorado school Legacy Academy, the kind of deployment that costs around a million dollars “for a total technology overhaul.”

In a world of heavy data consumption, TruConnect Mobile is partnering with Sprint to offer pay as you go internet for as little as $4.99/month.

Instead of adopting a set in stone pricing structure like the carriers do for smartphone and tablet usage, TruConnect Mobile is offering a true ‘pay as you go’ internet service to subscribers. Customers will only pay for the data they use.

Even before it has even appeared on shelves, the iPhone 5 already is set for a lawsuit. Samsung plans to challenge Apple in court to prevent the next-generation handset reaching South Korean soil, according to a Monday report.

We think this is pretty cool — the iHome iDM15 ($99) is a set of Bluetooth-equipped stereo speakers that include a microphone so they can be used as a speakerphone.

In the U.S. you may have trouble getting Al Jazeera on cable, but now you can check it out on your iPad using Flipboard.

Too often, the image of older people and technology comes with seniors using bowling with the Wii, fumbling with web cams or being ripped off by Facebook scams. A new book about learning the iPad appears to feed into that misconception: use small words and speak very, very slowly.

The news just never seems to be good for RIM. Thursday, the Canadian company announced it sold just 200,000 PlayBook tablets during the last quarter. Today, an analyst predicts the iPhone 5 will “steamroll” RIM’s upcoming BlackBerry 7 smartphones.

Apple fans hoping for an iPad 3 this year should just cool their jets, one analyst advises. There’s “no rush” to unveil a new version as rival devices stumble left and right. As Simon & Garfunkel might say: Slow down, you move too fast.

Is RIM’s PlayBook the next HP TouchPad? That’s the thinking of some reading the BlackBerry maker’s news that it shipped just 200,000 of its tablets last quarter, less than half that shipped the previous financial three-month period. What’s worse: there are also PlayBooks unsold at retailers. Can anyone say price cuts are on the way?

I was just speaking with another reviewer here about how surprisingly common it is for manufacturers to copy each other’s designs. To ‘port an entire line of products, though, is a little more unusual: iHealth has just announced an app-enhanced digital scale, blood pressure monitor and baby monitor that mirrors Withings‘ entire lineup, gadget for gadget.

There’s no space the iPad hasn’t invaded — the kitchen in particular seems a favorite for me place for me to plop it down in. I’ll look up recipes, stream live TV news in the background while I’m cooking or kick back with the Grey Lady over breakfast.

But Apple’s probably going to void your warranty if they find egg yolk in the iPad’s innards. Never fear — Belkin has just announced a whole aisle’s worth of iPad accessories for the kitchen that’ll keep the iPad mess-free.

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The above video, by Winrumors, showcases a Windows 8 tablet running alongside an iPad on iOS 5.

Microsoft unveiled Windows 8 to developers at its BUILD conference earlier this week. Alongside the software, the Redmond giant also announced a series of tablets running Windows 8, one of which is featured next to the iPad in the above video.

This video serves as a quick demonstration of several compared scenarios on the two platforms. More in-depth walkthroughs will likely be posted as Windows 8 matures out of its beta stages.

(via 9to5Mac)

Although the iPad began as a “magical” device for consumers, Apple’s tablet is quickly finding a place in business. From do-it-yourself meccas such as Lowe’s to the glamorous Gucci, retailers are learning how the iPad attracts, retains and increases customers. Indeed, 25 percent of iPads sold in 2011 will go to businesses, according to New York consulting firm Deloitte.

Just how important was Steve Jobs’ departure as Apple CEO to sales of the iPad? Very little, according to a survey indicating consumers were prepared for Apple’s co-founder to step down.