The Super-Taskers

The New York Times:

“A few brains may do better than others. That is the finding of a new study from the University of Utah where researchers say they’ve discovered a class of “super-taskers.”

The researchers found that about 2.5 percent of the college students they studied were able to simultaneously talk on the phone while navigating in a driving simulator. By comparison, the other students in the study saw their driving performance on fall 20 to 30 percent, according to David Strayer, a psychology professor involved in the study.”

These people will be getting a limited edition, multi-tasking capable iPad. As for Flash, scientists haven’t found references of super-human speed enabled beings yet.

The Day the iPhone Became a Wired Phone

Desk Phone Dock

“With Desk Phone Dock, use your iPhone as your one and only integrated wired desk phone in your office or home environment. You can make and receive calls like you did with a traditional wired phone. You don’t have to look up a phone number in the other devices any more. Your iPhone is always fully charged and ready to go at any time. It is very convenient for your business and personal needs.

Desk Phone Dock has built-in two stereo speakers, microphone, volume control, instant mute and USB & AC power dual sources. With these built-in features and distinctive design, Desk Phone Dock will keep your desk neat.”

Should be sold by Apple.

Posterous Founder: “The Finder is Dead”

Sachin Agarwal:

“The Finder hasn’t been updated with anything sexy in years. I think this is because Apple doesn’t want to devote major resources to something that should die. Expose, Dashboard, Spaces, and Spotlight are all hacks to make the final years of the Finder tolerable.

When you launch iTunes, you see your music. When you launch iPhoto, you see your photos. When you launch Mail, you see your email. Where is it all stored? Who cares.

I want to be able to access all my data on my iPhone, iPad, and iCar. And I want them all to be in sync. I want the data to be managed automatically, backed up, secure, and fast. If I buy a video on my iPad, sync it to my TV instantly. If I take a photo on my iPhone, sync it to my iPad. Don’t ask me anything, just make sure everything is everywhere.”

DashApp for iPad: Dashboard-like Web Multitasking

We don’t know if this is going to be approved by Apple but if it will, things will get interesting. There’s been a lot of buzz around multitasking and widgets on the iPad, so I guess it was just about time that someone came up with an idea like this: combining them. Widgets and multitasking, for the web: browsing multiple websites, do multiple things at the same moment without losing the ability to keep everything under control, just a glimpse away. Like splitting your Safari windows to fit half the screen and watching Lady Gaga while watching Lady Gaga. He would approve that.

But anyway, the concept of DashApp is simple: enabling you to open multiple websites at once using the iPhone visualization (thus resembling a widget mode) and multitasking. Updating Facebook Mobile while listening to a song on Youtube. Sounds nice to me, and if DashApp could perhaps use some UI refinements and improvements, no doubt we should expect more stuff like this in the future. Take a look at the video after the break, and follow the developer of DashApp on Twitter to stay updated.

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Snowtape Winners Announced

Thanks everyone who entered the Snowtape giveaway. Also, we’d like to thank Vemedio for the promo codes they gave to MacStories.

Here are the winners:

Simon DeMartini

Scott Karlins

You’ll receive the promo codes in your inbox in a matter of a few hours. Stay tuned for other giveaways coming this week.

In the meantime, you can follow the official MacStories Twitter account as @macstoriesnet .

And also, be sure to check out our teaser page for the MacStories:Next project. Something magical is coming soon.

iTunes 9.1 Now Available, Brings iPad Features

It’s here, it’s in Software Update. The much rumored iTunes 9.1 is finally available for download, and it introduces the expected iPad synchronization options, including iBooks. We’re getting there, folks.

From the changelog:

iTunes 9.1 comes with several new features and improvements, including:

- Sync with iPad to enjoy your favorite music, movies, TV shows, books and more on the go

- Organize and sync books you’ve downloaded from iBooks on iPad or added to your iTunes library

- Rename, rearrange, or remove Genius Mixes

Spotted: Shanghai Mahjong for iPad

It seems like games are one of the categories who’re getting the biggest benefit in the adoption of a bigger touch screen, or at least that’s what developers are showing us. Shangai Mahjong is coming to the iPad as well, thanks to MobileAge who are developing a universal application that will run just fine on your iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. It looks good, it’s vibrant and makes even use of popovers and other native elements.

As usual, check out the images after the break.

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