News tagged ‘Keyboard’

GumballTech blogger Brian has used the standard iPhone 4 keyboard to break the world texting record, according to a video posted on YouTube.

After reading yesterday about Melissa Thompson, a 27-year-old British woman who used a Samsung Galaxy S smartphone and its Swype keyboard to set a world record of 25.94 seconds, Brian decided to test his skill.

The official phrase you need to type is: "the razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human". Brian typed this phrase and started and stopped the timer himself in 21.8s. Both his and Thompson's time have yet to be confirmed by Guinness World Records.

Apple could be planning to introduce touchscreens to the iMac by way of a hybrid interface, a recently discovered patent application suggests. The company notes that despite the usefulness of a touch slide off-screen interface, a mouse- and keyboard-based one is still better in some circumstances. To switch between the two, Apple proposes a design in which a computer's display would be upright for the mouse interface, but slanted down and back for touch.

To make the transition possible an iMac would need a flexible display stand, and a sensor to determine when to change. For the latter Apple proposes several options, such as an accelerometer, a rotation sensor in the stand, and/or a special touch sensor at the place people would want to grip the display. Past a certain input limit, a computer would automatically switch between interfaces.

Notably, elements of Mac OS X such as the Menu Bar, the Dock and the mouse cursor could be made to slide off-screen during the handover. Apple has not specified what the touch interface would be, but it could be iOS.

After iPad's appearance in late April many Apple's competitors decided to release their own tablets. Almost four months had passed since that moment and now we decided to study the market of iPad's rivals and write down every one that worth attention.

But before we start the list it is important to note that we chose the tablet devices that satisfied next criteria:

1. No physical keyboard;
2. Availability for purchase;
3. The screen must be at least 5''.

Let's go!

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According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple started to investigate the compatibility problems of iOS4 and iPhone 3G. The company's spokesman explained that such a decision was made because of numerous user reports, which reveal that after installing iOS4 on iPhone 3G the latter started to work more slowly, became overheated and its battery life had significantly decreased.

Some people are annoyed and disappointed because of the situation:

“This phone has gone from being a dream to constantly annoying me. Not a way to make friends. I would upgrade to an iPhone4, but I’m feeling pretty angry that Apple has forced my hand by making my 3G unusable”.

iOS4 version for iPhone 3G does not support multitasking and Bluetooth keyboards, which was disabled because of RAM requirements, according to Apple.

Yesterday popular UK band "Squeeze" played their song "Pulling Mussels From The Shell" on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. The video is pretty interesting because one of the band members was using an iPad all along and even made a solo during a second minute.

The app he was using is MooCowMusic's Pianist Pro.

Yesterday Silicon Alley Insider reported that Palm had a chance to be acquired by Apple, but eventually HP’s bid was higher. Referring to an anonymous source that was familiar with the negotiations, author Dan Frommer wrote:

"Apple was mostly interested in Palm's huge library of intellectual property and patents (450+ patents on file, another 400+ applications on file). And unlike some other bidders, Apple even seemed committed to funding Palm's operations, perhaps to challenge RIM's dominance in the keyboarded segment of the smartphone industry, our source says."

It is reported that Google also wanted to purchase Palm to spite Apple, but the company didn't know whether Apple was actually bidding for Palm, so no moves were made in that direction.

Eventually HP acquired Palm and now has plans to use its webOS in company's future tablet devices that will compete with Apple's iPad.

Here's an official changelog for recently released iOS 4 for iPhone and iPod Touch:

This update contains over 100 new features, including the following:

• Multitasking support for third-party apps*
– Multitasking user interface to quickly move between apps
– Support for audio apps to play in the background
– VoIP apps can receive and maintain calls in the background or when device is asleep
– Apps can monitor location and take action while running in the background
– Alerts and messages can be pushed to apps using push and local notifications
– Apps can complete tasks in the background
• Folders to better organize and access apps
• Home screen Wallpaper*
• Mail improvements
– Unified inbox to view emails from all accounts in one place
– Fast inbox switching to quickly switch between different email accounts
– Threaded messages to view multiple emails from the same conversation
– Attachments can be opened with compatible third-party apps
– Search results can now be filed or deleted
– Option to select size of photo attachments
– Messages in the Outbox can be edited or deleted

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Thermaltake Technology company has a devision called LUXA2, which has many interesting luxury products. The recent interesting one is LUXA2 H4 - the Apple iPad solid-aluminum holder.

The holder looks really nice and is well manufactured. The main material is aluminum. The design is great and reminds us different Apple products, especially the iMac stand. LUXA2 H4 holds the iPad with two short and two V-shaped arms, that have six rubber nubs. The nubs tightly grip the iPad without scratching it. The user is able to adjust the width of the stand by pulling these arms. That's why LUXA2 H4 fits not only for the iPad, but can hold Amazon Kindle and many other eBook readers and tablets. This gives the H4 additional advantage over other stands on the market.

The holder also allows 360-degree rotation and 300-degree vertical adjustment. So there is no problem putting iPad at the right angle. Setting the iPad in portrait or landscape orientation is really very easy. However be careful rotating the device, since there are no V-shaped arms on the top.

LUXA2 H4 is great for internet browsing, ebook reading, watching movies and even gaming. It looks especially good when used with iPad and external keyboard.

Specifications:

• Height: 206mm (8.12 inches)
• Width: 151mm (5.98 inches)
• Depth: 138mm (5.44 inches)
• Weight: 446g / 0.98 lbs.
• Adjustable Angle: 360° (Rotated) and 300°(Vertical)

LUXA2 H4 costs around $59.99. The list of distributors is available here.

Here are more photos and video with LUXA2 H4:

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Those developers who study new beta-versions of iPhone OS 4.0 reveal that new firmware has features of suggested word replacement and spellcheck imported from the iPad to the iPod touch and iPhone. They were presented first in iPad which has iPhone OS 3.2.

Spelling system allows users to select a misspelled word with a touch and then choose «Replace...» instead of using copy/paste operations. The word that was misspelled is underlined in red like in Mac OS X or Microsoft Word. After that system offers replacement word suggestions that also can be chosen with only one touch.

Apple announced that iPhone OS 4 will also allow iPod touch and iPhone to support iPad's Bluetooth keyboard.

This week's sensation was a Steve Jobs' letter published officially on Apple's site. If you didn't read it or want to remind it to yourself, here are its main tent poles:

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Few days ago Tidbits made a test of Apple's iPad's Camera Connection Kit. It was  found that the kit works fine with almost any USB microphone, headset or headphone. That means you can listen to music or even make VoIP-calls. It is reported that the quality of such calls is "terrific".

The Unofficial Apple Weblog also tested the kit and found USB keyboards to work pretty good. Well, this was expected because of official iPad Keyboard Dock support. The only problem is that USB keyboards don't have a dock so it is inconvenient to use with iPad.

As you see from the video below the kit allows you to import photos from the memory card and delete it. iPad can import not only usual images, but also RAW files from high-end cameras. Moreover, photos will be copied at full resolution and with EXIF metadata. Video may be also imported and processed with a simple editor. But note that any video clip that is larger than 640x480 and 5 megabytes will be shrunk.

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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWpuHGUP26o

Microsoft has finally revealed its two new mobile devices named Kin One and Kin Two. They work on Windows Phone 7 OS and have a capacitive display with multi-touch support, custom browser (based on Zune version and has no Flash and Silverlight) and no third-party apps support.

Kin One that was earlier known as "Turtle" is a square slider with a QVGA display, 5 MP camera , LED flash, 4GB storage drive and QWERTY keyboard. Kin Two, more known as "Pure", differs by its landscape form factor, HVGA display, 8 MP camera and 8GB storage. But the experience in both of the products is almost the same. Kin One and Kin Two have 3G, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth.

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For some time people interested in the iPad's tech specs were wondering where the Dvorak keyboard support is. With iPhone SDK 3.2 Beta 5 released on Tuesday developers finally found it. But on the evidence above it is clear that there is a hardware support, but not software (so you can connect external keyboard, but there is still no way to change iPad layout to Dvorak's).

It is interesting that though the hardware support is developed, there are no Bluetooth Dvorak keyboards produced at the moment to connect to the iPad (on the other hand you can always take usual keyboard and apply stickers to its keys).

To know more about Dvorak keyboard layour read here.

When Apple started accepting iPad pre-orders it was announced the iPad Case will be shipped April 3rd and iPad keyboard Dock - April 20th. But as we see from the screenshot above both of these accessories are delayed. What is it, another manufacturing delay?

Since only one month remains to iPad's launch, such hardware manufacturers as SDI Technologies, Gelaskins Inc., Sanho Corp. and Griffin Technology gear up their production of chargers, sticker covers and other accessories for a new device. And it is not surprising - according to Poper Jaffray & Co, overall sales of iPod and iPhone accessories in 2009 were about $3.7 billion.

But while these companies want to release their products as soon as possible, some other accessory manufacturers are taking a wait-and-see approach. Jonathan von Rentzell, a representative for Blue Microphones commented on this:

"If you're making it for a product, you want to make sure there's a market."

Steve Jobs already showed 2 key accessories for the iPad - a case and a keyboard dock with charging function. Both of them are created by Apple and will be sold separately with iPad.