News tagged ‘design’

If you remember, few weeks ago we posted a video describing how you can attach an iPad to the wall with a Velcro. Well, for those, who didn't like the design side of the idea here is a new accessory created by Arodsin Redningar, a Swedish designer. It's called iPad Capsule and it's a wooden frame that coated in a protective white paint.

It is specially angled and you can’t turn it 360 degrees, but it's surely looks good.

At the moment there is no information about the price or availability.

More photos below.

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This Tuesday Adobe revealed its new digital viewer technology for creating e-magazines that can be viewable on touchscreen devices like Apple's iPad.

The technology was first demonstrated when the iPad version of Wired magazine was introduced. We wrote that Adobe had to rewrite the software in Objective-C for Apple to approve it. Since the release iPad Wired edition stays near the top of the App Store sales chart with its price $4,99.

Here's what the vice president of Creative Solutions at Adobe David Burkett said about new technology:

"We aim to make our digital viewer software available to all publishers soon and plan to deliver versions that work across multiple hardware platforms. It's safe to say that if you are already working in InDesign CS5, you'll be well on your way to producing a beautiful digital version of your publication."

Judging by the Wired iPad edition, new digital viewer technology can offer integrating videos, 360-degree rotatable images, slide shows and more directly into the magazine.

Gene Munster, who is an analyst at Piper Jaffray, told yesterday that Steve Jobs won't allegedly make a surprise with presentation of the next generation iPhone at the WorldWide Developer Conference 2010. Because of numerous prototype leaks everybody expects the iPhone 4G to have thinner design, front-facing camera, improved battery and 5MP rear camera. But Gene claimed people should not expect that a Verizon-compatible model will be presented.

"We believe that it is unlikely that the next generation iPhone will be available at Verizon (or Sprint) at launch; rather, it is more likely that it remains exclusively available at AT&T in the U.S. at launch".

He also said Apple may start selling iPhone 3GS for $99 instead of iPhone 3G and provide a "limited demo" of new version of Mac OS X (10.7), that has all chances to support multi-touch technology as a key feature. But as we wrote before it looks like WWDC2010 will focus mainly on iPhone OS 4.0 so the preview of Mac OS X 10.7 will not allegedly happen.

Gene is assured that the presentation of iPhone 4G will have a positive influence on Apple's stock.

"...the new iPhone will likely drive unit sales beyond Street expectations, providing a positive catalyst for shares of AAPL in the coming months."

Yesterday Dell officially announced its first 5-inch Android tablet. The announcement was made on the company's official blog.

So the device is now called the Streak. Previously it was shown at Consumer Electronics Show 2010 as a concept and called the Mini 5. The tablet has a 800x480 pixel capacitive multitouch screen, 1GHz Snapdragon processor from Qualcomm, VGA front-facing camera for video chatting, 5MP autofocus camera with LED flash, removable battery, 3.5mm headphone jack, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and MicroSD-card support. The Streak runs a customized version of Android OS with multitouch support and "Dell UI enhancements".  The system allows accessing to 40,000  apps in the Android Market, navigation with Google Maps, support for Google Voice and Microsoft Exchange Connectivity.

Blogger from the Round Rock company in Texas Lionel Menchasa thinks the Streak may be very perspective:

"I've been at Dell for 16 years, and I don't think there's ever been more buzz around a single Dell product than this. In my view, that's for good reason. Hardware and design-wise, this thing impresses. Add the ever-increasing capability that Android brings to the equation, and you've got a mobile device that offers a ton of flexibility while looking cool in the process."

The device will be shipped to the UK on June 4 and will be exclusive to the O2 network. Still there is no information on prices, data plans and American partners, but Menсhasa said everything will be soon announced.

In a video above one of the device developers Kevin Andrew tells and shows how useful the Streak may be in the everyday use.

Austrian company UrbanTool that sells super-hip gadget holsters, slings and bags has recently presented very interesting stuff - the PocketBar and the SlotSkin for an iPad.

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And now we have another leak from Vietnam. Tinhte.vn resource revealed few photos and video of the iPod Touch with camera which must be a next-gen Apple device. As you see from the photos below there is a "DVT-1" stamp on the back of the iPod that means it is a first design verification test unit so it may not be the final look of the upcoming iPod touch. Device's serial number reveals it's a late 2009 iPod touch 3G; also it looks pretty like the eBay prototype we talked about before.

The video reveals the device has 64 Gb and 2 megapixel camera produced by Omnivision and runs diagnostic utility.

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New information received by BusinessWeek from anonymous Apple employee reveals that Steve Jobs began to regularly visit Cupertino's office only in January, 2010, though he returned to work after liver transplant in June 2009.

BusinessWeek sought comments from Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and he said that he frequently speaks with his friend Steve Jobs and he looks healthy.

"Every time I hear him, he's doing a lot of work and a lot of thinking that's involved in that work, and those things sort of go away if you're very worried about your health".

Jobs announced about his temporary leaving in June 2009. He explained that the reason was about private matter. In September Jobs appeared at Apple's annual music event to present new iPods. It was his first appearance that year and that time he especially underlined his gratitude to a liver donor, who died in a car crash in his mid-20s.

After that Jobs was focused on iPad, and it is reported that he was personally involved in its development.

At this moment he is back at work and experts from Creative Strategies consulting firm say it is good news:

"Except for the fact that he's lost a lot of weight, he's the Steve Jobs of old. At the visionary level, technology and design level, he seems to be working at the same level he was before he was sick."

Hours before we posted photos of another iPhone 4G prototype that were obtained by someone from Vietnamese forum Taoviet. It was revealed that device has a SoC with Apple A4 processor and 256 Megabytes of Samsung DRAM. According to iFixit, the marking "APL0398 339S0084" indicates the A4 processor, and "K4X2G643GE" goes for 256 Mb Samsung RAM.

"Our engineers are not surprised by this finding. We were very impressed by the extraordinarily low power consumption of the iPad, and remarked at the time that its power consumption and board design was much more in line with handheld devices than laptop computers."

So now we're sure that new prototype has the same hardware as in Apple's iPad. By the way, iPhone 3GS has also 256 Mb of DRAM.

It is also examined that the leaked device has a 16 GB capacity instead of Gizmodo's "XXGB", and there are no visible screws on its sites. The new iPhone has a micro-SIM port on its side. A video reveals that new device was turned on but it wasn't running the iPhone OS.

More photos of iPhone 4G hardware are posted below and here.

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ADR Studio, which is an Italian design firm, recently tried to create another "Apple style product" and called it iWatch. As you see, it's a new kind of watch with aluminum casing, 16 Gb capacity and ability to connect to any mobile iDevice via Bluetooth or Wi-fi. The idea of iWatch is that it should answer calls coming to iPhone in your pocket, and internet access should allow reading RSS feeds and even viewing photos and weather. There is also a pico projector built-in to project images and videos.

More photos are given below.

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Finally the jailbreak for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch from the Dev Team is available for download. It's free and untethered and it's called "Spirit". The jailbreak supports every iDevice with firmware version 3.1.2, 3.1.3 or 3.2.

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Early this morning 9to5mac.com has posted a link to an eBay page where some seller was selling 2 semi-working iPod Touches that have cameras (!) and run a development version of the iPod OS.

The devices are marked with "Apple Development Team", "DVT-1" and "DVT-2". DVT means "design verification test". As you see from the photos below the UI looks pretty strange. Some people say it is a software that hardware team gets to set.

Currently the link is being broken so we can't check the information. Maybe Gizmodo already bought it? Also, the devices look very used, so there is no reason why it can't be another Chinese clone.

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This Wednesday London Evening Standard posted an article about supposed acquisition of ARM Holdings by Apple. According to the source:

"Apple is ARM's biggest customer and speculation is that the iPad maker wants to take chip design in house."

With a reference to an unknown trader it is claimed that with such a deal Apple could stop ARM from delivering its technology to everyone else's devices. That looks convenient. But we were not sure if it is a rumor or not, so we waited for a while for further information.

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Freelancestudios created another cool accessory for iPhone - this time it's an "iRetrophone" dock that allows you making calls with a retro handset. The design is obviously borrowed from Henry Dreyfuss, prolific industrial designer who in 1937 created the iconic type of phone.

The base is compatible with any iPhone. We also recommend installing the iRetroPhone Rotary Dialer app ($0.99) so that the pair looked really authentic.

iRetroPhone is available for purchase in ping, clear or black resin here for $195.

According to the sources from Apple Insider, AMD representatives have been seen recently on the meeting with Apple's top brass. The discussion was about the possible partnership between these two organizations as Apple looking forward in bringing AMD's CPUs to workstations and notebooks. The main reason for changing its main processor supplier is probably the try to increase the flexibility and competitive options of Cupertino's company. Another explanation is problems, that were encountered with Intel recently (they include limited availability of recently produced processors and new chipset designs that don't allow using any video chips except its integrated graphics chip).

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The iPhone is a smartphone that has had much success and has clearly "inspired" all other manufacturers.

Today Apple received a patent for iPhone and iPod Touch design. Those forms are now owned by Apple and may not be copied.

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