This week’s roundup of must-have iOS apps features two great new titles for music lovers, which will provide you with instant access to your entire iTunes library wherever you may be, and allow you to find upcoming gigs for all your favorite artists based on the tracks stored on your device. We also have an app that makes discovering new iOS apps & games incredibly quick and simple, and Bungie’s new iPhone companion app for Halo gamers.
Find out more about the apps above and check out the rest of this week’s must-haves below!
When American Airlines announced that they were planning on phasing out the paper in-flight charts in the cockpit in favor of the iPad, some of us smelled a PR maneuver. How could a couple of breakable $500 tablets in each plane be cheaper or easier than just printing out some maps?
As it turns out, though, paper’s heavy… and merely by switching to the iPad in every plane, American Airlines could save up to $1.2 million every year in fuel costs alone.
It’s been a bad year for RIM so far. Their BlackBerry business has been harried on all sides by the iPhone, and their stock has delated largely thanks to the arterial spray of customers they are losing to Apple.
Worse, in response to the iPad, RIM released the much heralded BlackBerry Playbook, which might just go down in the books as one of the worst, least functional and woefully misguided pieces of consumer technology ever.
Finally, just last week, Apple totally eliminated RIM’s sole advantage over iOS by announcing iMessage, which Wall Street is already saying will kill BlackBerry’s remaining prospects in enterprise.
Anyone surprised that RIM”s now announcing layoffs after seeing their first quarter results? I thought not.
Remember back in April, when Steve Jobs replied to the overblown iPhone LocationGate mini-scandal by saying that it was Google who was tracking users, not Apple? As he often is, looks like Steve is right.
Two weeks ago Sunday, my iPhone 3GS slid from my pocket and nuzzled itself amongst the fossilized bubble gum, mottled receipts and other sticky detritus that lays thick between the seats of the 7:20pm MBTA train to Forest Hill on the Orange Line. Doubtless someone is playing with it even now. I didn’t even notice it go, but unlike the last time I lost my iPhone, my initial reaction was not panic or thundering rage, but a serene sense of acceptance: I just don’t need an iPhone anymore. I barely even tried to recover it. This is my new phone, and god help me, I love it.
The iPad has been widely embraced by publishers who think it will stave off the death of print, but the latest forecast is grim: not even the “magical” iPad can save newspapers from the grave.
A company got in touch with Cult of Mac after our story about Apple enforcing the ban on iPad giveaways. Their apps were being held in limbo — see email above — during the iTunes approval process due to a contest they were running.
Stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place, they opted to pull the iPad contest. (The giveaway had been a major way, they told us, to get the apps better known.)
A full week has passed since WWDC, and yet we’re still finding little gems inside iOS 5. The latest finding is that the improved Calendar App allows creators of events to invite people to attend, and then see who all is coming once they’ve responded. The new magic is all made possible with iCloud. Here’s how it works:
In what sounds more like a court case between a feuding couple than two tech rivals, The notoriously-secretive Apple reportedly described Samsung’s demand to get a peak at unannounced iPhones and iPads as “attempts to harass.”
One tech reviewer has likened RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook to “the herpes of tablets.” Although the CNN writer was joking, not so funny is how consumers are shying away from the iPad rival.
Now that WWDC is over for another year and we’ve put all the excitement behind us, this coming week is going to be a little dull without something good to keep us entertained. Thankfully, our list must-have games is here to help. This week’s roundup features Dream:scape — the latest eye-popping game to use Epic Games’ Unreal Engine; 1000 Heroz which promises a new adventure every day you play; plus more great titles that are guaranteed to please.
Microsoft has been hawking pen-based tablets since 1991, when it first launched Windows for Pen Computing, a version of Windows with a pen interface layer. In 2002, the company introduced Windows XP Tablet PC Edition.
Although the Tablet PC has won a few fans over the years, Microsoft’s whole pen initiative didn’t succeed like Bill Gates always wanted it to. In fact, Microsoft’s approach to pen tablets is very much a product of Gates’ personal vision for how mobile computers should work. He’s always envisioned tablets that use a combination of handwriting recognition and voice recognition to replace the functionality of the keyboard and mouse.
The strength of Microsoft’s belief in this vision is pretty astounding, enabling the company to continue to support and promote the idea for 20 years without ever having what you might call a runaway success.
Gates was right about one thing: The functionality of keyboard and mouse would be replaced on tablets in a big way. And that’s starting to happen, thanks mainly to the iPad.
He was also right about predicting the widespread use of pens or styli on tablets. No, really!
Kicking off this week’s list of must-have iOS apps is a great new iPad 2 title from Evernote called Peek – the first iOS release that uses the Smart Cover to create a quiz game. We have a terrific new note-taking app from Junecloud, the developers behind the highly acclaimed Delivery Status Touch. Plus an app that will ensure you never get hit with a parking fine again, and plenty more.
The Redsn0w software by DevTeam has always allowed you to jailbreak your iOS device, giving you complete control over your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch (see why you should jailbreak here). This morning, though, redsn0w version 0.9.8b1 was released with iOS 5 Beta 1 support, meaning you can now jailbreak devices and run Cydia apps on devices with iOS 5 installed. Here’s how to jailbreak iOS 5!
We’ve been raving about Apple’s new iMessage feature in iOS 5 all week. If our current findings haven’t piqued your interest in the new messaging service that let’s you ditch SMS messaging, then maybe this little tidbit will intrigue you. With iMessage, Apple is also introducing the best mobile group chat client to ever hit a smartphone.
Apple is the world’s No. 1 consumer of flash memory, passing HP on its way to spending $17.5 billion for iPads, iPhones and other mobile devices. With that number only set to rise, it is very possible that next year, Apple will spend more per year on flash memory than Nokia’s entire market cap.
Here’s some advice to tablet companies hoping to beat the iPad features: stop wasting your time. The only alternative is to drop prices ridiculously low, like $300, says a Wall Street observer.
Yesterday, we reported that in the first beta of iOS 5, Apple had removed gesturing functionality from first-gen iPad owners, making it impossible to navigate between apps on Apple’s breakout tablet with iOS 5’s four- and five-finger multitouch gestures.
Here’s the good news. You can get them back. The bad news? It takes a jailbreak to get it done.
Samsung just launched its new Samsung Galaxy Tab advert, and in addition to blatantly mocking the iPad for its lack of Flash support, it also concludes by claiming the device to be better at web videos, multitasking, and gaming.
