Rising from the dead like a Newton running Mac OS 9, a new form of Mac Zombie is evolving in the wilds of Apple Geekdom: recycled old Macs being used as iPad stands.
One way for old computers to beat mortality is emulation: early Macs had Apple II emulators, PowerPC Macs running Mac OS X had Classic mode, even the venerable Lisa has an emulator.  Software emulation gives life to vintage machines long after the actual hardware ceases to function.
A new trend seems to be developing with the iPad: rather than running software within iOS, the iPad is making a home for itself inside the modified cases of old Macs!  We’ve coveredtheseitemsbefore, but taken in aggregate a new form of Mac recycling seems to be evolving within the Cult of Apple.
Finally, carbon and silicon based entities can repose and recharge side by side! FurnitureWorld brings us news of one of the Ultimate iPad Accessories, the iCon Bed, a luxury offering from Hollandia International and mattress brand Therapedic.  Dual adjustable mattresses pair with a high tech headboard for the ultimate in sleep workstations:
The iCon Bed’s upholstered headboard is in a class of its own with its sleek, modern look, along with four fully enclosed speakers, 250 watt amplifier and docking stations for two iPads built into the furniture. It is available in more than 200 fashionable colors and fabrics to complement any bedroom decor.
Like the iPad, the iCon Bed is more about a lifestyle choice than it is about a product, and caters to consumers who know how to balance work, rest and play, said Hollandia CEO Avi Barssessat.
This trendy staple will set you back a cool $20k. Perhaps an opportunity for creative DIY projects?
Miss being immersed in a blue cathode glow as you slumber in front of your staticky black-and-white television. Designer Jonas Damon did, so he built a dock in the style of an old cathode-ray television… complete with an Apple Dock Connector snaking like an electrical cord out of the back. Load up an MP4 of an old episode of Elvira’s Movie Macabre and you’ve got yourself a pixel-perfect recreation of a 1980s bachelor life.
Phone Disk, from Macroplant, is a utility for Mac OS X (and Windows) that runs quietly in the background on your computer until you plug-in an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad using a USB sync cable. Plugging in your favorite iDevice causes Phone Disk to seamlessly mount the iOS file system on that device to your computers file system. Once mounted you can directly access the files on that device using Finder (and Windows explorer) or any other program.
You’ll be interested in this application if you’re an IT Ninja looking for another good troubleshooting utility to carry around or you’re simply curious about the data that resides on your favorite iDevice.
In a surprise move, Apple has today approved CineXPlayerfor the iPad, which is a free application that allows you to watch Xvid movies on your device.
Great news for those of you out there with a collection of Xvid video files you would previously have had to convert before you could watch on your iPad, but is this just another app that’s temporarily slipped through Apple’s net? Apple doesn’t normally approve apps of this kind for the App Store and famously stands by the MPEG-4 and H.264 formats, brushing other formats aside.
It could mean, of course, that in an attempt to deter us from jailbreaking our devices, Apple is beginning to loosen up on its strict control of the App Store approval process. Many applications have passed Apple’s approval process, however, only to be withdrawn from the App Store hours later. And I get the feeling CineXPlayer will be next on the list.
Only time will tell whether CineXPlayer remains in the App Store or whether it will soon be pulled, but I’d advise you get your hands on it quick just in case.
Osmos for iPad is a unique game for Apple’s new platform. It reminds me a little bit of Spore from Electronic Arts, but only a little. I got bored with Spore on my Mac and iPhone pretty quickly, but I cannot say the same about Osmos.
The app makes good use of the iPad’s graphic abilities, touchscreen interface, and audio hardware. The latter provides nice music and sound effects that make playing the game for long periods of time enjoyable. However, the rapidly changing game play, that made me feel immersed in a totally new gaming experience, was what really made me fall in love with this game.
Ever since the iPad’s debut, it has handily dominated the 10-inch tablet space… but that hasn’t stopped companies like Dell from trying to make a dent in the iPad’s sales with smaller 5- and 7-inch tablets.
According to iLounge, Apple might be looking to compete with the burgeoning 7-inch tablet market with an iPad Mini of their very own.
It’s plausible, I guess: the iPad is pretty big — sometimes it seems a skosh too big to me — and a 7-inch iPad wouldn’t sacrifice much in usability for an easy gain in slingability.
9to5Mac is confirming that they’ve also heard this rumor from their sources, adding that the iPad Mini would likely have a 1500×1920 Retina Display.
What do you think? Is Apple aiming to shrink the iPad? If they did, would you want one? Let us know in the comments.
The iPad helps connect the bones for medical students. @Stanford U School of Medicine.
At just four months old, the iPad is preparing to go off to college.
Apple’s “magical” device, which launched April 3, will be handed out during fall 2010 orientation to college students at a number of US campuses, though the tablet computer won’t be replacing old-fashioned notebooks or pencils any time soon.
Stanford is the most prestigious university to announce an iPad program so far. All first year medical students and Master of Medicine students will be provided with an iPad.
“The iPad allows students to view and annotate course content electronically, facilitating advance preparation as well as in-class note-taking in a highly portable, sharable and searchable format,” the Stanford University School of Medicine announced on its blog. “Students will be able to easily access high-quality information at any place, at any time…and replacing printed syllabi with PDF’s is in line with the Sustainable Stanford initiative, which aims to build sustainable practices into every aspect of campus life.”
This Olay skin cream commercial (in Hind-ish?) features two Bollywood actresses video chatting about beauty tips — the younger one asks the big star what potions she uses.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e16gkiRaGxk
Star Katrina Kaif doesn’t have use just any old computer to deliver her skin advice — about lightening cream, ugh! — but converses with her pal Adah Sharma using video chat on an iPad.
Too bad the iPad doesn’t have a video chat feature, it could come in handy for everyone from porn services to far-away grandparents.
Guy Kawasaki’s seminal book The Macintosh Way is a classic for technology marketers (“evangelists”) and Apple geeks alike.  It is fondly remembered from the Golden 68k Macintosh Era, and is used to this day as reference material for startup businesses and college courses.
The book went out of print several years ago, and Guy has been working since to get the rights back.  He has finally succeeded, and is making the digitized eBook available free to everyone for the asking.
The Macintosh Way has seen Apple and the Mac through many changes over its twenty year lifetime; to celebrate the re-release, Guy has also released this video detailing the book’s transformation from printed page to computer screen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnjyrcozHyA
To get your free eBook, follow Guy on Twitter and sign up at freemacway.com You can also read the book in the OfficeDrop iPad app.
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Added bonus for this old Mac geek (and full disclosure): my own Vintage Mac Museum was used to film the opening of the video. Â For a few enjoyable hours this spring the production team and I relived the Macintosh Way! Â For more on filming the spot, see Vintage Macs Live Again. Â Anyone up for Snood?
The iPad may be magical, but do you want your taxes to pay for city councilors to have them?
That’s what citizens in Leicester, England wonder after the local council there drew up plans to provide all 54 city councilors with Apple’s tablet device.
Equipping all of the local politicos with iPads by May 2011 will cost around ÂŁ40,000 or about $63,000 for the 64 gigabyte models, sparking critics who note that the council is spending for shiny gadgets when it has to cut some 1,000 jobs due to budget issues.
Last week the U.S. government surprised everyone by announcing that jailbreaking, root access, and carrier unlocking was a legal option for buyers of smartphones that want to access apps not sold by the manufacturer or to free the handset for use on the network of their choice.
After this decision it is likely that more people will be jailbreaking their iPhones, iPads, or iPod touches. There are over 100 million iOS devices in circulation and it is thought that a mere fraction of these are jailbroken.
Jailbreaking isn’t necessarily an easy thing to do, but there are many how-to’s (including our own below) that will explain to you how to do it. The problem with that is that you need to find the right one to fit your iOS device. That isn’t easy with the plethora of iOS versions and different iOS device models out there until now.
The Jailbreak Matrix solves that problem. The Matrix is a chart that will show you the details you need to jailbreak your specific iOS device and its version of iOS. It will even tell if you if a jailbreak doesn’t exist, provide download links for firmware and iTunes, and versioning information for firmware and baseband (if appropriate). The information provide is likely to help you to prevent bricking your device.
Is your iOS device jailbroken or unlocked? What circumstances drove you to wanting to do that in the first place? Tell us all about it in the comments.
iOS hackers have released jailbreakme.com, a browser-based jailbreak utility for the Apple iPhone 4, 3GS, and 3G when running iOS 4 or 4.0.1. The jailbreak is reminiscent of one of the original jailbreaks for the original iPhone.
In addition to the above devices the jailbreak is compatible with an iPad running iOS 3.2 and 3.2.1 and an iPod touch 3G running iOS 4.0.
To celebrate their 3rd anniversary, Readdle have started a 48-hour sale from today which sees all of their iOS applications reduced to just $0.99. In addition to this massive sale, Readdle are also giving away an iPad to 3 lucky winners who retweet their anniversary message on Twitter.
To be in with a chance of winning, just follow these 3 simple steps:
The iPad is a fantastic kitchen computer, no question, but consider me skeptical of the FridgePad, a ÂŁ49 magnet-backed aluminum iPad case meant to allow you to easily slap your Apple tablet to the side of your Fridgidaire.
You know how sometimes you’ll put something heavy under a weak fridge magnet and it’ll slowly slide down the door until it smacks onto the floor? Yeah, that, except with an easily splinterable 1.6 slab of glass.
The iPad can be a handy to have on your next vacation, whether you need to research flights for a quick escape from your cousin’s wedding, keep the kids entertained on the plane or figure out which road is the least congested in a strange city.
Here are five free iPad apps we wouldn’t leave home without.
Kayak Explore + Flight Search Kayak is the Ferrari of cheap flight search info — and a lot of users (including me) think the search engine works better in the iPad version than it does online. One thing is certain: the roomy iPad screen makes it easy to search for your flight, drilling down results by airline, number of connections, airport, times and price.
And, in the latest version, if you’re trying to figure out just how many miles you can put between you and your ex with the cash wadded up in your pocket, there’s a handy budget/distance calculator that will tell you just that. The caveats: hotels and car rental info is provided through Safari and you can’t book flights directly from the app.
Bringing your iPad on the road and want more juice than its 10 hour spec? Battery maker Sanho have you covered: their new HyperMac Stand for iPad will add an additional 16 hours to your mobile time.
The HyperMac Stand is a rectangular block in which your iPad can be slotted at an 18 degree angle, perfect for typing. It contains an 1100mAH, 40Wh battery that will charge your iPad even when it’s away from an AC outlet, as well as pass-through charging and syncing.
The price? $130. That sounds a bit steep at first, but given the combined price of both a stand and an external battery, a moment’s reflection makes it a loss less hard to swallow.
If you’re going to jailbreak your iPhone or iPad, before you get started, we highly recommend you backup your device’s SHSH blobs.
With the release of iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch G3, Apple added an extra layer of security to prevent hacking, jailbreaking and unlocking. Apple is constantly closing the exploits used by jailbreak hackers by updating the firmware of its iPhone/iPt and iPad. If you accidentally upgrade your jailbroken device to Apple’s latest firmware, you can’t re-jailbreak it until hackers release new jailbreak software.
Eating sashimi at his local sushi bar, this strange but adorable Japanese man wondered if his iPad would be as excellent a plate as a tablet computer, and promptly proceeded to smear raw fish, tofu, rice and curry across his device’s pristine IPS display.
His astute conclusion? “It’s better to eat with normal dishes… iDish is flat surface, Curry can’t be scooped. My iPad got fishy smell. You need to be careful.” Words to live by.
Japan’s Aircord Labs have taken the iPad and brought its IPS display into the third dimension not by the usual methods — replacing the display or donning some red-and-blue glasses — but through a custom programmed app and a neat trick of crystallography. Placing a special glass pyramid on top of the iPad’s display, three separate app-generated images are merged into an animated, three-dimensional hologram.
It looks incredibly neat, even if it’s not exactly practical. Practical or not, though, it’s got me feeling some sort of primeval upgrade tug… an insistent doubt that causes me to look at my own iPad and go, “And here I am, using it in two-dimensions like some kind of sucker.”
Unable to walk and chew gum at the same time, I’ve always admired how musicians can play and turn the page on sheet music without losing the plot.
They may need a little less coordination now thanks to a new iPad app and a Bluetooth foot switch called BT-105.
Still a prototype, maker Airturn says this Bluetooth version of their wireless, hands-free automatic page turner will be compatible with Bluetooth-enabled computers including the iPad.
With the tap on a foot switch, you turn to the page forward, if you hit it too soon, another tap turns the page back. On the demo, the musician flips the switch using a third-party app with a zoom feature, moving the sheet music half a page at a time.
Expect to see start seeing this page-turning app in late 2010.
The iPad is a runaway hit and is going mainstream fast. CC-licensed photo by Mat Buchanan.
The iPad is a runaway hit and it’s going mainstream faster than anything they’ve seen, Apple execs are saying.
“It is not following a typical early adopter curve and taking a while to cross over into the mainstream,” said Apple COO Tim Cook during an analyst conference call.
With the iOS 4.0 update, Apple finally figured out how to bring free major updates to the iOS operating system to non-contract devices like the iPod Touch…. which makes this rumor coming out of Stuff.tv pretty questionable.
According to their app developer sources, a paid update to iOS 4 for the iPad is a “definite.” That’s a pretty big contradiction of Apple’s own iPad EULA, which reads:
Apple will provide you any iPad OS software updates that it may release from time to time, up to and including the next major iPad OS software release following the version of iPad OS software that originally shipped from Apple on your iPad, for free. For example, if your iPad originally shipped with iPad 3.x software, Apple would provide you with any iPad OS software updates it might release up to and including the iPad 4.x software release. Such updates and releases may not necessarily include all of the new software features that Apple releases for newer iPad models.
Of course, Apple’s free to change course on this, but if they figured out how to bring iOS 4 to the iPod Touch without a fee, there’s little doubt in my mind they can manage it for the iPad… even if Cupertino was tempted to go back on its word.
Apple has released an update to its iBooks application for the iOS and the latest version brings with it a few nice new features.
As well as the ability to now choose between 6 different fonts for your books, you can also double-tap images to see them in greater detail; and experience books that include audio and video.
In addition to new features, we also get welcome bug fixes, or, “stability and performance improvements.” I’ve lost count of the number of errors I get when opening a book in iBooks, so I’m hoping these issues are now fixed. So far, so good.
The full list of features from the app’s description is as follows:
• Double-tap an image within a book to view it in greater detail.
• Experience books that include audio and video.
• Enjoy substantial performance improvements when reading PDFs.
• Look-up definitions to English words inside books without a specified language.
• Addresses an issue that may have caused some book downloads to not complete.
• Includes many stability and performance improvements.
You can download the update through iTunes or the App Store on your device, or grab iBooks from the App Store for free if you don’t already have it.
