News tagged ‘gadget’

You may remember our post about "Wi-Fi Sync" app that allows you to sync your iPhone/iPod touch with iTunes via Wi-fi. Well, this week Apple rejected it. But its developer Greg Hughes submitted it to Cydia (an unauthorized source of different software for jailbroken iDevices), and now it is available there for $9.99.

Greg also told Engadget that he talked to Apple representative and he said the case was not about any violations.

"While he agreed that the app doesn't technically break the rules, he said that it does encroach upon the boundaries of what they can and cannot allow on their store. He also cited security concerns."

"Wi-Fi Sync" is currently available only for Mac users, but Hughes promises to release version for Windows.

This April's issue of Italian Vanity Fair looks just adorable with Rihanna dressed in a tech sexy coat with her iPhone whipped out from where her shirt should be. That is a really cool idea, because Italians just love gadgets and such a mega pop star with the most popular device will excite everyone!

[via]

As you remember yesterday Apple updated its online store claiming the 3G iPad will be shipped May 7. Well today EnGadget received information from the company that the device will come to American stores on April 30th at 5PM. It is also the day when people who have pre-ordered iPad will get it. So the promised "late April" date is finally confirmed.

The story is quite strange. Someone found a future iPhone 4G (or iPhone HD) in a bar in San Jose. It was inside of an iPhone 3G case. The device has a front facing camera and 80GB of storage. It's not clear if this is definitely a production model, or just a prototype.

Fortunately the founder contacted engadget, so we have the photos:

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Guess what gadget won the first place? Well... wrong answer, this one got the second place. Take a look at the video:

PadGadget did some research of the the iTunes database last night and found that Apple has already approved and listed several iPad apps in the AppStore. The names use HD (High Definition) in the title to signify the bigger 9.7 inch, 1024×768 pixel iPad display. Here is a quick list of what was found:

• Ammoin HD
• Azkend HD
• Flight Control HD
• Grind HD
• HD Recovery
• Labyrinth 2 HD
• NBA Hotshot HD
• Numba HD
• Plants vs. Zombie HD
• Sparkle HD
• Worms HD

You won’t find any of these iPad titles using your standard iTunes browser, you need to use Apple’s more recent web interface to find the new titles mixed in with the thousands of regular iPhone and Touch titles.

UPDATE: Apple has corrected the iTunes Preview site and HD iPad titles are no longer listed.

Sybase released another study based on the survey made by Zogby International. The company analyzed the opinions of 2,443 adults that have at least one mobile phone. Among them 770 have smartphones.

More than a half of respondents (52,3%) said they will most likely use an iPad or any other tablet device to do work. 36% claimed such a device will help them to be more productive at work. Every second person find iPad to be an excellent gadget for watching videos, but only every third person is going to play games on it.

"The study shows that consumers are looking for devices they can use both at home and work, with implications for the business being asked to support them. Further, findings show that while device functionality is important to satisfying people's desire for a personal and work-ready mobile experience that the experience is incomplete without greater access to data."

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Today we will take a look at an interesting accessory - external microphone for iPods and iPhones. As for the iPod everything it is quite simple - in order to record something you need an external mic. iPhone has it's own internal microphone. However the quality of the recording would be better with external one.

We performed a simple test: recorded the iTunes radio using Voice Memo application on the iPhone. First we used internal microphone and later we attached the external one. The quality of the external is slightly better. It is more sensible and the level of noise is lower which is good. Here are the sample recordings (m4a format): Internal, External.

This external microphone is compatible with:
- iPhone 3G/3GS
- iPod Touch 2G/3G (you need to download and install some recording application from AppStore)
- iPod Nano 4G/5G (with pre-installed software)
- iPod Classic 120G (with pre-installed software)

You can buy one for $3.12 at BudgetGadgets. They have free shipping worldwide. Use the coupon name VM5OFF5 during checkout, it will give you additional 5% discount.

More photos:

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Have you ever tried to find in accessory for your iPhone or iPod Touch that looks nice and doesn't cost too much? I recently decided to renew the case for my iPhone. While browsing over the internet I've found a nice place with many good choices.

I've chosen classical black leather. It it very well made and looks great. It fits well for iPhone 3G/3GS and even iPhone 2G. You can buy one for just $4.14 at BudgetGadgets. There are discounts if you buy more than one. This shop has free shipping worldwide, which is also nice.

Use the coupon name VM5OFF5 during checkout, it will give you additional 5% discount.

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Patently Apple reports that Apple filed for the 'magic trackpad' trademark. US Patent & Trademark Office published application on February 26, 2010. 'Magic Trackpad' likely refers to an external peripheral device for desktop computers or laptops plugged into external displays. There has been speculation about some sort of multi-touch "trackpad gadget" from Apple. Maybe Apple will provide desktop users a way to take advantage of some external multi-touch system.

The application requests registration in International Class 009 under a number of categories relating to computer hardware and software, as well as several types of peripheral devices:

International Class 009: Computers; computer software; computer operating system software; computer utility software; computer hardware; computer peripherals; scanners; touchscreens; keyboards; computer mice; trackballs; trackpads; touchpads; light pens; joysticks; game controllers; graphics tablets; digitizers; cables and connectors; flash memory drives; USB drives; solid state storage devices; barcode readers.

In this last post we'll tell you about new Drivesavers instructive app, virtual iPhone planetarium, papershow tool for making presentations, Inklet software to turn Mac multi-touch trackpad into a drawing tablet and a tool for creating your own iPhone apps.

Free DriveSavers Hard Drive Disk-aster Simulator app for the iPod Touch and iPhone is a new way to study how a hard disk works. It teaches in interactive fashion about all the things that may crash a drive, what happens during a seized motor, clicker failure, SSD failures, contamination and head crashes. Also you’ll learn how the data recovery gets done and see the inside of a hard disk. That looks pretty instructive.

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TellTale Games finally released Tales of Monkey Island for Mac. One married couple creates armpockets with its own hands. From now on you can create and order your own customized case for iPhone. Location browser for urban discoveries is called Flook. To know more read the rest of the post.

TellTale Games released a Mac version of Tales of Monkey Island! The latter is a 3D adventure game that was released for PC and WiiWare in 2009. The game is available for purchase for $34.95 or you can download a free demo.

Telltale Games also announced the next games to release on Mac will be Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures, Sam & Max, and Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People.

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We're back on reporting about the apps and gadgets presented on the MWSF 2010. Now we'll talk about iV Plus - the solution to turn your iPhone into remote; FloTV - the service to watch TV in the USA; Square Up service to pay for everything you need only with your credit card and iPhone; and Wissair's USB DisplayDock Set will get the screen from your laptop to the HDTV-set wirelessly.

U-Socket turned to be out a very interesting solution, but FastMac was found to offer something more. The thing on the pictures below is called The iV Plus. It helps to manage a set of your home devices and consists of IR Remote, Battery Pack, Flash LED and case that wraps around the iPhone. FastMac will also provide free Universal Remote software to work with this creation. The iV Plus will be shipped expectedly in the second quarter of 2010 for $130.

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We're continuing to cover news from the MWSF 2010, and this time the talk will be about MacSpeech Scribe app, MusicSkins accesories, Kanex adapter and CarMD device.

MacSpeech is known for its MacSpeech Dictate program that allows user to speak to Mac and wind up with formatted text. At the MWSF company released MacSpeech Scribe (US 149$), which turns recorded audio into RTF-files (that are readable by any word processor). It doesn't create text with punctuation and you have to train the program by correcting its mistakes, but with the Nuance engine from the previous app it looks really impressive.

MusicSkins was also present at the MacWorld 2010. This time there were vinyl skins not only for Apple devices, but for any gadgets known (at least they say they add 5-10 devices to their roster per week). Company reps told us the accessories for the iPad are also ready to be printed, but before it’ll go to the market they want to make sure their production will work well and fit correctly to the device. At this moment skins for iPod and iPhone (US 15$) and for the Macbook (US 30$) are available.

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It is known, that iPad has a restrictive DRM shackles, which makes Apple the only available supplier of software for this device. So if you buy an iPad, you will have to download software only from the Apple’s AppStore. Yes, there is a big possibility of jailbreaking the gadget within the first 48 hours after its shipping since it’s based on the already jailbroken OS iPhone, but still this is not the best way of downloading applications for most of the people.

There are people, who disagree with a DRM-based strategy of software distribution. Some of them created an Anti-DRM group named Defective by Design. They told us they created an online petition that has been signed for 8,800 times since its inception 4 days ago. DbD has already sent off their first 5,000 signatures in the form of a giant postcard, which is in the photo above.

DbD’s operations manager John Sullivan says their main target is to get Apple to remove DRM and DRM enforcement from all its media and software. This is especially valuable for the iPad designed to be widely used by non-technical people who might not be aware of DRM.

- What Apple is doing with software is quite different. This is a scary step … as Apple move towards this model in the future,

said Sullivan.