News tagged ‘app’

Debra Shinder from TechRepublic posted an article about 10 reasons why she won’t buy an iPad. As time passes by her thoughts provoke more and more passionate discussions on this topic. So here are these 10 reasons:

1. There is no physical keyboard (or you need to buy an Apple Bluetooth Keyboard).
2. One size doesn’t fit all (it doesn’t fill the gap between mobiles and netbooks as 9.7” inches is an exact screen size of netbook, and you cannot put it into your pocket).
3. It runs iPhone OS (so there is no multi-tasking).
4. There’s not enough storage (and you cannot expand it via USB-flashdrives).
5. There’s no HDMI output or camera (if you can watch video, why you can’t make videoconferences with your friends?).
6. There are no USB ports (and you would not be able to connect your own web-cam, for example).
7. There is no flash memory slot.
8. The price is not right (it just seems to be illogical to pay 200$ for additional 48 GB )
9. It is locked in. All apps are in AppStore, and good ones cost money.
10. It is all about network (why should people change their internet provider to AT&T just because of purchasing some new device?).

While Debra compares fully-equipped 829$ iPad with a powerful and though compact laptop, it seems like she’s looking for an ability to make use of all its capacities. On the other hand, TUAW critics and Apple fans say that iPad is designed to be an enhanced ebook-reader that makes it easy to handle everyday operations like checking e-mails or surfing the web.

What do you think?

SlideToPlay published several interesting videos where popular games are shown on the iPad in action. You can see games like Need for Speed Shift, Super Monkey Ball 2 and NOVA played on the big screen. Some of them are optimized for the bigger resolution, others are just a 2x bigger rendering of the exact same iPhone game you can buy now.

The titles of the first movie are Assassin's Creed, Sims 3, Tetris, and Paper Toss:

Here's the video of NOVA:

Read the rest of this entry »

The software company RATP gave an interesting presentation called "How to successfully market your iPhone application". This presentation gives advice to AppStore developers how to increase sales and learn new marketing strategies.

Let's watch:

Darren Beckett created a small table, comparing the entry-level iPad's cost and functions with popular e-readers like the Amazon Kindle DX, Fusion Garage JooJoo, Sony Reader and others.

While the iPad is as the most expensive on the list, it's fairly obvious if you need anything more than a simple e-reader, the iPad offers the most bang for your buck.

BroadPoint AmTech analyst Brian Marshall calculated the real price of the Apple iPad. His numbers are based on the price of all components.

The flash memory and the aluminum case both cost about $25, while the Apple A4 processor is just $15. The total cost for 16GB Wi-Fi iPad (US$499) is just $270.50. Manufacturing adds $10 and warranty service costs add up to $20.

Thr 32GB and 64GB Wi-Fi models add even more margin. The 32GB model costs only $25.50 more than the 16GB, but the suggested retail price is $100 more. Apple will really make money on the 64GB model, which costs $76.50 more than the 16GB device but sells for $200 more.

Google released a software update for Android-based Nexus One smartphones. The update offers a number of enhancements, but the most interesting one is a support of the multi-touch technology in phone's Browser, Gallery and Maps applications. The new functionality is called "pinch-to-zoom".

Google previously had an agreement with Apple, that Android OS would not support multi-touch in the U.S. Now it looks like all the agreements are gone.

Engadget posted a video of the Nexus One's pinch-to-zoom functionality:

iPhone hacker Geohot, who created popular utilities blackra1n (jailbreak) and blacksn0w (unlock), posted a message on twitter about the new firmware 3.1.3 released by Apple:

Hopefully some vulnerability in the new firmware will be found.

Once Apple began allowing VoIP over 3G we can now expect this functionality to apper in real iPhone applications. Fring already implemented it. Skype has announced via it's blog that a new version of Skype app for iPhone will support 3G calling:

You may have seen other apps offering calls over 3G, but we’re holding ours back for a little bit longer. Why? So that we can give you the very best audio quality we can. When our 3G-capable Skype for iPhone app is released, it’ll let you make calls in wideband audio, giving you greater clarity and fidelity – because that’s what you expect from Skype.

Watch the video for more details:

Yesterday Patrick Steward gave an interview to PBS in its new broadcast premiere.

Sir Patrick Stewart, widely known for his roles of Charles Xavier in the X-Men films and Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek says he loves complexity. So Twitter with its 140 characters long messages is too simplistic to use. But then in his interview to Frontline’s Digital Nation he suddenly starts to talk about iPhone and dramatically describes an obsessive man-love for it as “An extension of who I am”.

It really looks like Jean-Luc Picard by himself arrived from the future to tell us about modern technology and the new way to understand it. Let's watch:

Every Apple’s device has been embraced by pop culture sooner or later, and we have to admit the iPad is already one of the most popular devices.

Here is a Parry Gripp’s latest tune about the iPad, which represents an idea of how successful this device will likely be: we can argue about which kinds of nachos are ruling, but we can all agree nachos in general are awesome.

A new photo of the iPhone 4G had been published by gadget blog Engadget just in a few hours before the iPad presentation, and because of the latter it has been lingering for nearly a week undetected.

Due to authorized sources the device on the photo is a prototype of the handset that will hit the market in about five months. As Engadget says, this fairly distorted shot is all that they have at the moment.

So it seems that iPhone appears without its iconic aluminum bezel. It looks like it is surrounded by a black plastic or maybe it's just rubberized somehow.  Also a whitish spot on the left of the earpiece grill points to a camera lens, but it may also be just a reflection from some other source.

As it was claimed by authorized sources from Apple, the new iPhone 4G will have a customized system-on-a-chip package (like an iPad has) and improved battery.

Enagdget reports that new facts about the 4th generation iPhone were discovered in iPad’s 3.2 SDK:

Buried way inside the platform simulator lies a set of folders dedicated to specific models of iPhone OS-ready devices, including the iPhone 3GS, second generation iPod touch, something called the "K48" (yep, the codename we were told was the internal name for the iPad), and... the "N89."

This "N89." is rumored to be the codename of the next iPhone. Previous versions of the iPhone were named the M68, N82 and N88.

They also have found a bit more than that:

Apple's just released firmware (3.1.3) also includes another new model, the "N80," which we're told will most likely be the next version of the iPod touch.

Rumors say that 4th generation iPod Touch is likely to ship this September, while the next iPhone is expected this June-July.

Along with a new firmware for iPhone and iPod Touch Apple released a new version of SDK - 3.1.3. It's a required update, otherwise Xcode will not recognize or work with your 3.1.3 device. You can download it at iPhone dev center.

As usual the iPhone SDK includes Xcode, the iPhone simulator, and other tools for developing applications for iPhone and iPod Touch. If you want to develop for the iPad, you'll need the SDK version 3.2 instead.

Apple has just released new firmware 3.1.3 (7E18) for iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G, iPhone 2G, iPod touch, iPod touch 2G and iPod touch 3G.

The update includes:

• Improves accuracy of reported battery level on iPhone 3GS
• Resolves issue where third-party apps would not launch in some instances
• Fixes bug that may cause an app to crash when using the Japanese Kana keyboard
• Other security updates (more info)

So this is a minor update, which fixing only the accuracy of the 3GS battery meter and the stability of some third-party app launches. This update is avaliable via iTunes.

New firmware 3.1.3 also introduces a new version of the baseband, the 05.12.01. So if you need unlock do not update! DevTeam also warns us:

If you care about your jailbreak and unlock, don’t update your device - 3G and 3G(S) owners should pay particular attention to this warning.
PwnageTool and redsn0w are not yet compatible with 3.1.3

Experimenters show that the latest version of redsn0w 0.9.2 is able to jailbreak iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G and iPod touch 1G. Just point it at the 3.1.2 IPSW (download here) after doing update or restore to firmware 3.1.3. Sounds like DevTeam will release an updated version of redsn0w that will handle firmware 3.1.3 officially. They say iPod touch 2G with firmware 3.1.3 is also jailbreakable.

Users report that unlock software, blacksn0w and ultrasn0w, doesn;t work with the new baseband.

During the iPad demonstration when the iBooks was presented some of us could notice that it looks exactly like Delicious Library. And its developer Will Shipley noticed that too.

So in a few days later he gave an interview to The Washington Post, mainly to complain about the striking similarity:

- But the thing about iBooks is, it's a book-reader. So, of course they looked around, found the best interface for displaying books (Delicious Library's shelves), and said: "yup, this is what we're doing".

He said the he did not copyright the idea of wooden shelves and showing photo-realistic books on it. Because if he tried, it needed to be valued somehow, and then Apple would sent its lawyers and they would ask how much was the value and how it was determined.

But still it is flattering. He made something that has been acknowledged by a huge company known for their design potential. And Shipley say on that:

- But your [designs] aren't really yours. They have lives of their own. So when your designs do change the world, you have to accept it. You have to say, 'Ok, this was such a good idea, other people took it and ran with it. I win.'