iPad - page 262

We don’t know where this came from.

We don’t know who made it (J.G. Thirlwell, perhaps?).

We don’t even know if there’s an iPad or iPad 2 ensconced within this case’s leathery, plush-lined folds.

We’d love to find out (tell us if you know), but until we do, mere ignorance will not stop us from posting this exquisite iPad Case, because all we can see is that gorgeously medieval gold emblem, showing Isaac Newton lazing under an apple tree, waiting for the full weight of gravity to come crashing down on his head. That was Apple’s original logo back in 1976.

The iPad is so hot companies were trying to promote themselves by given them away before Steve Jobs even launched it.

Now it seems that Apple now starting to enforce a lengthy series of guidelines with would-be promoters that may signal the end of iPad giveaways. 

XtremeMac recently released a thin plastic snap-on shell that covers the back of the iPad 2 called the Microshield ($35). It ships as is with no other options and the minimalist case leaves you wondering about who it was made to appeal to and the use of the word “shield” in selecting a name for it is misleading.

While tablets might be a revolution for everyone else, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings thinks they’re a bore. Where it’s really at? The Apple TV.

PC executives have seen their profits and marketshare so decimated by iPad that they now having to make the ultimate sacrifice: slightly smaller bonuses.

PC makers looking to ride the tablet wave and overcome Apple’s lead have had a rude awakening.

At Computex 2011 in Taiwan this week, Asus unveiled its Padfone – a new smartphone that can be placed into the back of a magic dock transforming it into a tablet. But before you stick your iPhone 4 on eBay and start waiting for one of these things, check out this dock from ECS which does exactly the same thing with your iPhone.

To celebrate the birthday of Marilyn Monroe today, the magnificent Silent Film Director app for the iPhone has gone free for just 24 hours.

Speculation that Apple may build its own maps application into iOS 5 and ditch its partnership with Google has now been put to bed, after Google’s Executive Chairman confirmed the two companies are still buddies.

When best-selling tech author Clay Shirky tweets “lucky to be alive. Always wear your seat belt!” he gets our attention.

The iPad has already killed netbooks, and now it’s starting to do the same to laptops. Within five years, the iPad might even kill off the Mac, says NVIDIA… replacing it with ARM-based machines that can outperform even the speediest Intel processors.

In the halls of power, you’re more likely to see an iPad or an iPhone, as U.S. federal agencies toss BlackBerries aside for Apple technology. Could President Obama get an iPhone next?

With a number of applications running in the background while we’re hard at work, desperately vying for your attention, it’s easy to get distracted when one of them catches your eye. A solution to this problem is OmmWriter – an award-winning application that helps you block out the distractions that surround you at your desk and enables you to focus on your writing. The team behind this magnificent word processor have now brought OmmWriter to the iPad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNtV9dLUNAs

Check out this Kickstarter project — it’s a really smart clear polycarbonate iPad 2 case (called the iLoqk — hey, we’ve heard worse) that comes with a removable clamp that doubles as a tripod mount, which is yours for a pledge of $40. An extra $20 will bag you the XShot, an extending arm that attaches to the tripod mount and comes with a wireless shutter release for the iPad’s camera. It’s a pretty nifty idea, and seems like it’d helpful in all sorts of situations.

“If something ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is a phrase Etymotic must have taken extremely seriously, judging by a look at their now-mythic, $99 ER-6i. The set has been around since their release in 2004, after which they quickly became the standard against which all other sub-$100 IEMs were tested. But seven years is an eon for a product to have remained essentially unchanged in the gadget world. Are they still as good now as they were then?

Illusion Labs – the team behind the hugely successful Touchgrind skateboarding game – have taken everything that made their first hit such a success and used it to create Touchgrind BMX. Put the skateboard to one side and become a BMX pro – performing spectacular tricks in beautifully crafted locations all over the world.

The Heist is currently famous for its overwhelming popularity that has helped it knock Angry Birds off the top spot of the App Store’s paid chart. Featuring a collection of mind-bending puzzles that you must solve in order to get your hands on the valuable prize inside the vault.

Siege Hero boasts gameplay similar to Angry Birds, in that you must destroy a group of enemies protected by glass, rocks and timber. However, instead of taking aim at a group of ugly pigs, vikings are your enemies, and rocks replace the birds as your ammo.

Find out more about the games above and check out the rest of the week’s must-haves – including Back to the Future: Episode 3 and To-Fu: The Trials of Chi – below!

Already famous for its excellent Pro Messenger IM application, eBuddy has taken real-time messaging to the next level with eBuddy XMS – a free, real-time messenger that enabled you to chat with text, pictures, emoticons and more. It features a highly-polished user interface and an experience guaranteed to give apps like WhatsApp and PingChat! some real competition.

In addition to the recent launch of ‘Apple Store 2.0′, the Apple Store application for iPhone also got a much-needed revamp. The latest version of the app works internationally and boasts some great new features.

Opera Mini has been the iPhone browser of choice for many since it launched, promising to be the fastest, most cost-efficient web-browsing experience for your iOS device today. Its recent update made it a universal application delivering all its Opera goodness to the iPad, which impressed Cult of Mac’s Giles Turnball in his recent review.

Find out more about the applications above and check out the rest of this week’s must-haves – including Contacts Journal and Aelios Weather – below!

While the iPad’s onscreen virtual keyboard is nice, it still doesn’t compare with a physical keyboard in usability. Fortunately, Apple includes some relatively hidden features which can greatly improve typing speed as well as usability on the iPad’s keyboard. In this video you’ll find out how to enable these features and use them to their full potential.

There’s something fishy about this, but iPad 3G has supposedly been hacked to make phone calls and send SMS messages — just like a giant iPhone!

Check out the video of the supersized iPad/iPhone in action:

The guys over at Alphonso Labs have put a lot of hard work into their iPad app Pulse. Despite the plethora of reader apps out there, Pulse really stands out with its sleek interface that allows users to read vast amounts of content without feeling overwhelmed by the myriad of sources.

As fans of the app, we’re stoked that the Pulse team has decided to include Cult of Mac under their main “Featured” section. If you’re looking for another way to get your Apple and Cult of Mac fix on your iPad or iPhone, then Pulse is definitely an app that you need to check out. And make sure you add our feed while you’re at it.

RIM never did shake its button-down image in attempts to expand into the consumer market dominated by Apple. Realizing its failure, the handset maker is ready to surrender to Apple in the consumer ring, and focus on its business roots… an arena which iPhone is also increasingly dominating.

Remember yesterday’s sketchy report that Apple was looking to get Samsung to supply an AMOLED display for the iPad 3? So that’s not going to be happening, and it’s all because of the same problems that have plagued the tech from the start: the difficulty of ramping up large scale production on AMOLED displays.

For those of you who use Google’s Chrome web browser on your Mac or PC, a new app called iChromy aims to offer an identical browsing experience on your iPad, with a polished user interface and some rather nice features.

If you’ve ever tried to use your iPad while wearing a pair of Ray Bans, you know the drill: you can barely see the display. Counter-intutively, it’s not an issue of brightness: rather, polarized sun-glasses work by only letting in light that vibrates vertically, and the light coming from LCDs vibrates the wrong way.

Your next iPhone or iPad, though? It might change all that.

Apple has released an update to Logic Express and Pro so that both applications support the ability to open projects that users create on an iPad using GarageBand on that platform.