Bleeding hearts the world over are very happy with the news that Apple and Foxconn are working together to make employee working conditions better in their Chinese factories. But there is a group of people who aren’t so pleased about the reductions in working hours: the workers themselves.
Looking for a great deal on the tablet that proved to manufacturers that price matters? Amazon is offering up certified refurbished Kindle Fires at a ridiculous price of $139. It’s a limited time, limited quantity deal, so you’ll want to act fast. The Amazon Kindle Fire blazed into the tablet market with its perfect price and treasure trove of content. It was the first tablet to successfully steal a sliver of the market away from tablet titan Apple. At $199 it opened the door for budget conscious consumers to experience digital content in a new and exciting way. It was a good deal then and at $139, it’s a great deal now!
News media conglomerate Gannett is making a big push for mobile reporting and they’ve decided that the iPhone 4S is the perfect tool to start with for journalists across the country. To that end, the company has equipped 1,000 print and broadcast reporters with new iPhones to use for on the spot reporting, editing, and broadcasting.
The initiative was announced in December and will eventually include iPads as well as iPhones, but it is just now rolling out after the company put journalists getting the handsets through intensive training in the use of the iPhone and of the handful of apps that Gannett has chosen for reporters to use.
Porthole is a Mac app which will stream all the audio coming from your computer to AirPlay speakers, instead of just the music from iTunes. It’s kind of like Rogue Amoeba’s excellent AirFoil, only much less fine-grained in terms of control.
RIM has making some interesting choices regarding its future over the past year. The company launched its PlayBook tablet with what was really a beta release of the OS. It expanded its device management platform to include support for managing iOS and Android devices (though many saw that move as too little openness too late in the game). And it introduced support for Android apps in last month’s PlayBook OS update.
In another move that will leave observes scratching their heads, RIM is looking to hire iOS developers. Unlike RIM’s recruitment of Android developers, this doesn’t appear to be in any way aimed at porting existing apps to the PlayBook. The job posting, which lists RIM’s Bellevue, WA location, is for an internal Senior iOS developer that would be creating enterprise-focused iOS apps for the iPhone and iPad.
Music streaming services like Spotify, Rhapsody, and Rdio are set to face yet another competitor on iOS, as Sony prepares to make its own service available to the iPhone and iPad. The company’s COO, Shawn Layden, has confirmed that Music Unlimited will be making its way to the App Store “in the next few weeks.”
Some recent reports have suggested that the new iPad can use more data than its predecessor while on 4G LTE networks. This shouldn’t surprise anyone since faster download speeds on the new iPad will certainly lead to more online activity. It’s like saying an engine won’t get you somewhere faster after its been turbocharged.
One of the biggest features in the new iPad is its ability to use 4G data speeds on AT&T, Verizon, and select carriers in other countries. In most cases one can get faster speeds on the new iPad than a home DSL connection offers. It’s truly phenomenal.
Since you can’t get unlimited data on the iPad here in the states unless you’re grandfathered in, it’s important to be careful about how you use your iPad when you’re away from a WiFi network. It can be easy to blow through 1GB of data in a month if you don’t watch your activity. Here are some helpful tips and tricks for saving 4G data on your new iPad.
Since the new iPad made its debut in the U.S. and nine other countries last week, iOS developers have been working hard to optimize their titles for the device’s Retina display. There are already some fantastic games on offer that are Retina-ready, so we’ve compiled a list of the best so that you can get you game on in stunning high-definition, and compared them to their iPad 2 counterparts so you can see how nice the new graphics look.
Despite being totally dedicated to Mac OS X right now, I can’t help but get excited about Windows 8. Having enjoyed the Metro UI experience with Windows Phone, I can’t wait to try it out on a tablet. And I know a lot of users feel the same way. But one thing that could put many of them off Windows 8 slates is the lack of iTunes.
Microsoft knows this, and it knows it’s a real problem that could kill Windows 8 tablets before they’ve even hit the market in the minds of many consumers.
Telltale Games, the studio behind popular iOS games like Back to the Future and Monkey Island, is developing a new series based on the hit TV show The Walking Dead. If that news alone doesn’t get you excited, then check out this incredible teaser trailer.