There’s a small but real segment of the iOS accessory market that thrives because of the iPhone’s inability to be used while wearing coverings over your hands. Little capacitive stickers you sew onto the finger pads of your gloves so you can use your iPhone’s touchscreen, or gloves with capacitive thread sewn right into the fingers.
As winter fast approaches, you might even be thinking of buying yourself one of these accessories… but a recent development in the technology of touchscreens might obviate the need for these accessories entirely if Apple brings them to future devices.
Other than Samsung’s Android-powered Galaxy Tab, Research In Motion’s upcoming BlackBerry Playbook seems like it will be the first real competition to the iPad’s dominance over the tablet market when it is released in early 2011.
Featuring a 7-inch display, a 1GHz processor, 1GB of RAM and both front and back-facing cameras, as well as an entirely new operating system based on Adobe Air, the BlackBerry Playbook certainly has the specs to make a splash… but a lot will depend on whether or not the price is competitive with the iPad.
According to RIM CEO Jim Balsillie, the BlackBerry PlayBook will at least match the entry-level iPad’s price when it drops. In an interview with Business Week, Balsillie said:
“The product will be very competitively priced,” and when asked whether it will be about $500, Balsillie said “no, it will be under that.”
Good news so far, but my guess is that he’s referring to a subsidized price. The Samsung Galaxy Tab has roughly the same specs as the PlayBook and it doesn’t cost under $500 without a subsidy. Given that RIM exclusively makes phones and 3G-connected devices, I’d speculate that the PlayBook will end up being cheaper than an iPad… but only as long as you’re willing to sign a two-year contract for the “savings.”
Along with AirPlay, AirPrint was a fiercely promoted new feature in iOS 4.2, promising a powerful new printing architecture that allows iOS devices to easily and wirelessly print to any networked printer.
Don’t be surprised, though, if AirPrint is nowhere to be seen when iOS 4.2 is released on Friday: according to a report on MacStories, Apple has pulled support for AirPrint from iOS 4.2 at the last minute.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably been checking Software Update a few times every day this week, waiting for Apple to finally dislodge some of its bigger releases from its development pipe: namely, Mac OS X 10.6.5, iTunes 10.1 and iOS 4.2. No luck yet, but according to , all three are imminent… and two of those updates will go live today.
The new MacBook Air has the highest number of liquid contact indicators, or LCIs, of any Apple product yet… little stickers that tell a Genius if it’s okay to deny you service on your broken gadget because you dropped it in the drink.
LCIs have always been troubling, since they tend to trigger by humidity alone, making Apple gadgets a risky investment for those who live in the tropics. Apple’s actually been sued about false LCI reports, so the fact that the new Air had so many of them was particularly worrisome: it seemed like Apple was just chomping at the bit to deny you service on the notoriously hard-to-service Air.
However, things may not be as clearly conspiratorial as that.
So you’ve got your iPhone 4 and you know it has not one, but two cameras inside it.
“How I wish it could take pictures with both of them at once,” you cry.
Well, your plea is answered in the form of 2Side Cam, a $1 app for iPhone 4. In “2Side” mode, it takes two photos – first one with the outward-facing camera on the back of the phone, then a second later another with the user-facing camera.
Even if Glassgate turns out to be much ado about nothing, the iPhone 4 is a fragile little phone, despite its Gorilla Glass plated front: according to a study by third-party warranty company SquareTrade, the iPhone 4 is the most fragile smartphone that is.
The Gadget Geek is a nerdy individual who loves his techy toys; he’d much rather stay home and play with his latest gadget than attend a social gathering. Here’s our list of drool-worthy gift ideas certain to keep him geeking out for months.
The Businessman works hard, and he relies on his stuff to get him through the day. Make life easier both at home and on the road for the Businessman with these Wall Street-worthy gifts.
Dead Jeans and designer Paul Kruize want to help you hang on to those precious blue jeans that are so ripped up and nasty looking your mother pops a blood vessel in her head every time you try to wear them outside the house. You know, those jeans that are so soft and comfy and hold so many memories you just can’t bear to toss them in the trash even though the slowly growing up part of you says you know you should.
Now, for € 29,90, or about $42 (including shipping from the Netherlands), you can keep at least a remnant of them forever in an ultra-cool, felt-lined pocket case for your iPhone or iPod touch made from their two back pockets. They are sure to be a one of a kind accessory and even more valuable because they’ll have a little bit of your very own mojo sewn right in.
Don’t worry that you won’t be able to buy that iPhone 4 during the holiday madness, production of the popular handset has finally caught up with demand, one analyst told investors Tuesday. Where once Apple had a three week backlog in June, you can now get an iPhone 24 hours after ordering online.
“Apple has now expanded distribution to Target (Target also sells the iPad) to join others including Apple stores, AT&T, Best Buy, Radio Shack and Wal-Mart,” writes Barclay’s Ben Reitzes.
Instead of those little plastic discs of the View-Master familiar to kids the world over, with My3D you’ll be able to download special apps from the iTunes store. Hasbro promises there will be a mix of gratis and paid content available — likely to include trailers and movie snippets following the 3D film trend.
Amazon has adopted a 70-30 revenue split for newspaper and magazine publishers, bringing it in line with Apple’s App Store policy and prompting some to predict the emergence of another iTunes store, this time for newspapers. The Seattle-based online retail giant made the announcement Monday, proclaiming the new arrangement “a great new tool for making Kindle better and easier than ever for publishers.”
The announcement comes as Amazon prepares to offer newspapers and magazines on Kindle Apps, but could also be used as leverage by Apple to convince publishers reluctant to offer items on both platforms. A report last month by the Wall Street Journal suggested the Cupertino Calif. company could reach an agreement with publishers in time for the widely-expected launch of an iPad 2 in early 2011.
Wondering just how capable the new MacBook Air is with pro-level applications? The boys over at Anandtech ran the 11.6 and 13-inch MacBook Airs through their paces running Adobe PhotoShop CS4.
The results are about what you expect: max out your new MacBook Air and you’ll see a 10-20% performance increase at the expense of about 9% of its optimal battery life… but having that gut instinct arrayed out in benchmark numerics certainly makes the decision to drop a couple hundred extra on your Air seem more objective.
Looking to convert your old vinyl to a format your iPod can understand? Sharper Image’s iPod Turntable will help you archive your old LPs to MP3 that your iPod or iPhone can read, no middle-man computer required (although it is an option through USB).
Mophie's Juice Pack Air is certified by Apple, but Apple won't currently sell the slide-on battery pack in its retail stores because of "Glassgate." Photo by Kokkie76. Used with permission. http://bit.ly/aZD7on
Apple’s retail stores have suspended sales of iPhone 4 slide-on cases because of concerns about trapped dirt causing scratches and cracks — the so-called “Glassgate” issue.
The ban is impacting at least half-a-dozen case makers who expected to have a blockbuster holiday season, said a source who works in the case industry and asked for anonymity.
At least one manufacturer has hundreds of thousands of battery pack cases that have been suspended by Apple’s stores, despite being certified by Apple’s “Made for iPhone” program.
“Glassgate is a real problem,” said the source. “Apple is not approving slide-on cases right now for its stores.”
Does this data released by Pageonce seem nuts to anyone else? It claims that the average iPhone owner’s average monthly credit card expense is a shocking $6,872 a month.
The iPhone 3G’s sluggishness under iOS 4.0 is so legendary that it has sparked an entire class action lawsuit, but does iOS 4.2 improve things any? Yes, according to TipB: they say that Apple has greatly improved the iPhone 3G’s performance when typing, scrolling, pinching, zooming and browsing under iOS 4.2.
Is that enough to end Bianca Wofford’s class action lawsuit? Probably not… but it certainly makes her claims of an Apple conspiracy to force obsolescence of the iPhone 3G a lot harder to believe than it was already.
Back in August, Doom creators id software promised to blew us all away with a demonstration of their next generation Rage engine running on the iPhone 4 at sixty frames per second. It was just a proof-of-concept, but don’t worry, there’s a game in there… and it’s going to be called Mutant Bash TV.
Syncing your iPhone or iPod Touch all too often takes the device entirely out of commission, but it doesn’t have to be that way: Omnio’s WOWKeys transforms your iPhone 3GS, iPod Touch or iPhone 4 into an extension of your keyboard for both the Mac and PC.
If a new patent spotted by the USPTO archeologists over at Patently Apple is believed, Lion might boasts a new way to navigate menus that would make Mac OS X more suitable to touch input than ever before.
The new 11.6-inch MacBook Air is extremely netbook-like in dimensions, if not in specs or price, but if that $999 tag doesn’t do it for you, the gadget sweatshops of China would be happy to sell you a Hackintoshable MacBook Air clone for just $260, right down to the official Apple logo.
