Radio Reporter Uses iPhone 4 As A Replacement For Bulky Equipment

A decade ago Neal Augenstein packed and took with him a suitcase full of heavy equipment so that he could cover news events in the field for the WTOP radio station. Today? It’s an iPhone 4, iPad and a few accessories.

As a radio reporter, the fundamental aspect for Augenstein is audio capture, currently that role is fulfilled by the iPhone 4’s inbuilt microphone (the third-party one he used to use with his 3GS doesn’t yet support the iPhone 4) and whilst it isn’t quite up to the quality he previously experienced, he says it is 92% as good as before. For audio editing he uses the VC Audio Pro app that lets him quickly and easily pull cuts, edit, assemble and adjust the volumes on a three-track screen. This is Augenstein’s favorite improvement on his previous workflow, because he is now able to push out a report in something like 10 minutes rather than 30 minutes.

For live reports Augenstein experimented with two expensive options but left unsatisfied went with the tried and tested Skype which gives him (and his station) a free VoIP service that he says “often sounds as good as the pricy apps”.  Twitter has also become a complementary avenue of reporting and he writes that he will often “break stories on Twitter, and follow-up with audio and website reports.”

Augenstein also carries an iPad primarily for taking down notes during press conferences and a “jury-rigged” stand for the iPhone for when there is no podium to place the iPhone on. In essence Augenstein highlights the very benefit of ditching his old equipment for the iPhone 4 when he says: “I can produce intricate audio and video reports, broadcast live, take and edit photos, write web content and distribute it through social media from a single device.”

[MediaShift via TUAW]

 

Stephen Colbert Already Wants An iPad 3 [Video]

The iPad 2 came out a few weeks ago and it’s still the hot new gadget among Apple aficionados and average consumers, right? I mean, some people didn’t even get the chance to buy one, as they’re still waiting in line at the local Apple Store hoping for new stock to become available. Stephen Colbert got one though, he loved it as a device to send emails and tweets or check out his photos…and then he got tired of it. “Anyone know when the iPad 3 is coming out?”, he asks. “I just want something new, you know?”

Hilarious. Check out the video below.[MediaMemo via Colbert Nation]
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Madrid Now Renting iPads for Your Stay with PadInTheCity

If you’re on a vacation in Madrid, Spain and don’t have your 3G iPad, why not rent one? This sounds like a great idea and PadInTheCity has developed a new service that lets you rent a 3G iPad pre-installed with tourism and business apps. For $55 (€39 in Madrid) per day, a tourist (or anyone that doesn’t have an iPad) can rent a 3G iPad with unlimited data.

PadInTheCity arranges the rentals through their site. Enter the dates that you will be in Madrid to check for availability, enter your credentials then you’re ready. The payment system is through PayPal, so people will already feel comfortable making a transaction this way as opposed to using a credit card in a foreign country. PadInTheCity does put a $708 (€500) hold in case the iPad is not returned though.

They will deliver the iPad to your hotel, the airport or train station - wherever you like - and also bring a case and charger for use. You now have a fully equipped 3G iPad with apps to help you get around the city like news, maps, radio, tourism apps, wikipedia and even Angry Birds. Once you return the device, they unblock the €500 credit card hold.

PadInTheCity is a great idea, it’s like a tourist guide that fits in your travel bag and without the difficult accent! More cities around the world should encompass this idea, what a great idea.

[via Cult of Mac]

 

Google Books for iOS Update: Landscape Reading, Faster

Released in December for iPhone and iPad users, the official Google Books app was very promising as it gave everyone access to Google’s 2 million book catalogue, with the possibility to download books locally and read them on-device. The app, however, sported some pretty bad UI inconsistencies and user experience issues, such as the impossibility to read in landscape mode on the iPad or several bugs that turned many users into frustrated readers that had to deal with an unstable and slow app.

Google wants to change this today with a major update to Google Books for iOS that introduces landscape reading on the iPad, a “find” feature that shows matches for a specific keyword as you scroll down the book and a useful “Get eBooks” button that will automatically sign you into the Google eBookstore with the same username you used to log into the app.  The app is now faster, bugs have been fixed and the iPad on iOS 4.3 also gets a nice 3D page curling effect. Google claims they have improved the book downloading experience, too, as well as the whole responsiveness of the app.

If you’re a Google Books user, you can find the app here. The update is propagating in the iTunes Store now.

 

iPad 2 Tops Consumer Reports Rankings In Spite of “Competitors”

In the past year, product review and rating magazine Consumer Reports had a troubled relationship with Apple products and its users: since the release of the iPhone 4 on AT&T in June 2010 and the whole “Antennagate” debacle that saw Apple issue a press conference to clarify that the issue was common to every smartphone and announce the free Bumper program, Consumer Reports couldn’t recommend the phone even when a) it was topping the publication’s rankings and b) Apple released the Verizon iPhone which, according to many, doesn’t come with any signal attenuation issues. They, however, recommended bumpers. It was pretty clear that Consumer Reports suddenly had a “thing” for not recommending Apple’s iPhones anymore, but we’re not here to speculate on the reasons or the testing methods they use.

The good news for Apple is, Consumer Reports today announced that the new iPad 2 tops the magazine’s tablet rankings, beating other devices in test labs. Competitors are approaching quickly, though, and Consumer Reports thinks that other tablets will soon give people more choice between different models:

So far, Apple is leading the tablet market in both quality and price, which is unusual for a company whose products are usually premium priced,” said Paul Reynolds, Electronics Editor at Consumer Reports. “However, it’s likely we’ll see more competitive pricing in tablets as other models begin to hit the market.

In their tests, the iPad 2 sported longer battery life than any other tablet: (from Archos, Dell, Motorola, Samsung, and ViewSonic)

The largest gap in performance among the 10 tested tablets was evident in Consumer Reports’ battery-life test, measured by playing the same video clip continually on each tablet and timing how long it played until the battery ran down. The top-scoring iPad 2 lasted 12.2 hours, but the lowest-rated tablet, the Archos 70 Internet Tablet, $270, lasted just 3.8 hours.

Tech specs, of course, aren’t everything when it comes to a personal device like a tablet, and Apple knows this very well. Still, if you’re really interested in Consumer Reports’ take on the whole subject, check out the full press release after the break. [via BGR]

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Spotify iPhone App Updated With New Design

In spite of the issues with music labels the company is facing in the attempt to launch the service in the United States, Spotify is still committed to making great mobile apps to stream, organize and cache music for offline access while on the go. A major update to the iPhone client (not available in the US App Store) was released last night, and you can find it here for free.

The Spotify iPhone app requires a Premium account: this subscription enables you to use the mobile apps for iOS, Android and other devices, removes ads and lets you stream songs at a higher bitrate. Premium also allows you to save music offline and access the service from another country (that’s what I do). The new iPhone app (version 0.4.11) is a rather big update as it brings a completely new (and elegant) UI design, much cleaner than before. With this new design style, I can’t wait to see what the iPad app will look like – Spotify hasn’t detailed plans for an iPad client but that’s most likely in the works and (finally) ready to ship. The new Spotify for iPhone has also been localized into French and Spanish, and marks the comeback of the Edit button to create and manage playlists, select them for offline usage and delete them. In the main screen, the “Local Files” tab indicates the music files wirelessly synced from Spotify on your computer. The (very unstable) iPod integration feature has been removed in this version.

Spotify for iPhone is available here. More screenshots below. Read more

EyeTV App Update Adds AirPlay Support

In its latest update, Elgato’s EyeTV, introduces support for AirPlay - something many users have been requesting be added.  You’ll be able to stream both live TV and recordings from either the iPhone or iPad version of the app straight to any TV connected with an Apple TV.

One might ask why you would bother streaming TV (particularly live TV) via a Mac to an iPhone to only send it back to a TV. But this can be handy if you have another TV, perhaps in a bedroom and don’t want the hassle of having to install another antenna or set top box which can also cost a lot more than just an Apple TV. That way you could just set up your Mac and EyeTV to record your favourite TV shows and stream it to that bedroom TV.

Don’t forget that there are a number of hacks/workarounds that allow you to stream (using AirPlay) from your iPhone or iPad to another iOS device using AirTuner or even to a Mac using Banana TV.

[Via TUAW]

 

Patent-Infringement Reversed: Apple Wins Court Battle For $625.5 Million

Penalized 208.5 million for three patent violations, Apple wasn’t going to give up a fight for a few of the most prominent features of today’s OS X: Spotlight, Time Machine, and Cover Flow. On October 1st, 2010, a jury initially awarded $625.5 million to Mirror Worlds LLC in the Texas Eastern District Court (a court which has been scrutinized for appealing to patent trolls). However, the verdict was postponed by U.S. District Judge Leonard Davis – additional post trial arguments were slated to last until November to the dispute.

Computerworld: Apple asked Davis to delay his final ruling on the verdict, claiming that the award amounted to “triple dipping” because the jury penalized Apple $208.5 million for each of the three patent violations.

The case dates back to 2008, as Yale University professor David Gelernter (the founder of Mirror Worlds Technologies) accused Apple of infringing on patents revolving around data manipulation. Specifically, the claims against Cover Flow involved how documents, pictures, and media were displayed on a computer via the Finder and iTunes (the patents also applied to the iPod, iPhone, and iPad). Today it was decided that the patents do not infringe on Mirror World’s technologies and that the damages were also too high.

Bloomberg: “Mirror Worlds may have painted an appealing picture for the jury, but it failed to lay a solid foundation sufficient to support important elements it was required to establish under the law,” U.S. District Judge Leonard Davis wrote.

Apple has also recently won an initial patent battle with cellphone giant Nokia, as the International Trade Commission ruled Apple did not infringe on a set of patents related to mobile phones, computer technologies, and portable music players.

[via Bloomberg]

Image via Engadget

Woz: “The Tablet Is For The Normal People”→

Woz: “The Tablet Is For The Normal People”

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, speaking at the Storage Networking World in Santa Clara, California:

The tablet is not necessarily for the people in this room,” Wozniak told the audience of enterprise storage engineers. “It’s for the normal people in the world,” Wozniak said.

“I think Steve Jobs had that intention from the day we started Apple, but it was just hard to get there, because we had to go through a lot of steps where you connected to things, and (eventually) computers grew up to where they could do … normal consumer appliance things,” Wozniak said.

The roots of the iPad can be easily found in the first Macintosh, “the computer for the rest of us”. I have no doubt Steve Jobs thought from the beginning that, someday, a single screen to hold in our hands would become many people’s standard way of using a “computer”. This is happening now – almost 30 years later –  thanks to technological and engineering advancements.

And if you think that the concept of the iPad as we know it came years before the iPhone – it makes you wonder what the next 10 years are going to be like.

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