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Posts tagged with "iPad"

iFiles: Now With S3 Support, AirPrint and Text Editing In The Cloud

iFiles is one of my all-time favorite iOS apps for iPhone and iPad. I use it on a daily basis to get files in the devices and out of them, thanks to the app’s powerful sharing capabilities that allow it to get recognized on your local network as a web server. Plus, as I wrote in my review, iFiles was meant for a cloud-based workflow, for all those users who daily play around with items stored on Google Docs, Flickr, Rackspace, and so forth.

The latest 1.8 update, which showed up in iTunes a few minutes ago and I’ve installed on my iPhone, doesn’t come with a huge set of new features – but the ones that are there make this app a must-have, again. Read more

An iPad Rear Camera: Practical or Impractical?

Earlier today we learned some Chinese accessory makers are already producing cases for an alleged “iPad 2”. Those cases clearly show a hole in the upper left corner for a rear-facing camera in the next iteration of Apple’s tablet.

“A rear-facing camera? On the iPad? How are you supposed to take pictures holding the iPad like a camera?” These are the questions going around today, the same we heard when the iPad was first unveiled and, well, lacked a camera.

iLounge posted a follow-up to their iPad 2 case story, with some predictions / hope about a possible rear camera in the iPad 2:

One thing that Apple really enjoys doing, particularly when adding a new feature to an established product, is rethinking things that competitors have attempted and gotten wrong.
[…]
Picture the iPad in an advertisement looking out at a landscape, snapping a picture, and having the landscape appear on the iPad’s screen looking just like what your eyes were seeing. Or taking a picture of a group of people, then becoming the picture frame for the family photo. It sounds so simple, but with the lens on the back of the Galaxy Tab (or, say, the iPod touch) right now, that’s not happening.

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Apple and Costco: It’s (Officially) Over

You may remember there was a time when retail chain Costco was selling iPods. Everything was fine and cool back then, until the day Apple got bigger and started giving iPads away to other retail chains such as Target, WalMart and Sam’s Club – cutting out the old partner Costco. The iPad started appearing everywhere, but not at Costco.

Soon after that, and we’re talking October 2010, Costco started dropping the iPods they had because they were left out of the iPad distribution game. Several reports pointed out that Apple products had gone missing at Costco. Today, the end of the relationship between Apple and Costco is official. Read more

A Beautiful TV Guide For Your iPhone and iPad

I’m thankful for the possibilities offered by today’s technologies, which allow me to ditch the old ways of doing…stuff for more pleasant, rich, interactive and beautiful experiences. Apple’s devices and apps in the App Store surely played a great role in this digital revolution: we don’t buy specific items anymore because there’s an app for that. The last time you bought a radio player? An actual map? A point & shoot camera? Exactly.

Still, there was no “last time” for me when it comes to TV guides. I never bought those magazines that offered monthly and weekly views and summaries of what would be in television – I  just checked TV programming on the internet. Or on my local newspaper. But now I’m ready to step my game up, with an app simply called “TV” and available at .99 cents in the App Store for iPhone and iPad. It’s uncluttered, beautiful, elegant and, finally, it’s something that deeply integrates a TV guide with the information coming from the internet. Read more

Apple Posts The Best iPhone & iPad Apps of 2010

Just like every year, the iTunes Rewind section in the iTunes Store lists the best music, movies, TV shows, podcasts and audiobooks of 2010. This year’s iTunes Rewind is available here, and it includes a huge selection of apps, too.

As you can see in the screenshot above, Apple is showcasing Hipstamatic, Angry Birds, Flipboard and Plants Vs. Zombies in the iTunes Rewind 2010 main page. As you click through, you can check out the “Hot Trends” in iPhone and iPad apps in 2010 – and many more apps are listed there.

The “Hot Trends” contains other sub-sections, such as “Shoot, Edit, Share” (iTunes) which features apps like Instagram and Path. Read more

“iBand” Plays Christmas Songs With iPhones and iPads [Video]

Here we are again, featuring a band that doesn’t make music with actual instruments, but decided to go the iOS way instead. The “iBand” from the North Point Community Church (website), indeed, played 3 Christmas songs (Carol of the Bells, Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree and Feliz Navidad) using only iPhone and iPad apps.

The result, as you can see in the video embedded below, is fantastic. The songs turned out great when played through the apps, and the members of the iBand actually had fun when performing on stage all together. Crowd was cheering, the video is going viral on Youtube – all thanks to the power of quality music making apps released in the App Store these past two years.

Reid Greven from North Point writes on his personal blog:

Jared arranged “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and “Feliz Navidad” using the apps, and creating a demo by multitracking them in Apple’s Logic software (though any Digital Audio Workstation would do the trick).

Jared, Eddie Kirkland and I arranged the first song, “Carol of the Bells“. It’s amazing what you come up with when you sit in a room, hook 3 iPhones up to some speakers, and get adventurous!

The apps used in the performance include SoundGrid, Guitarist, iGog, Pianist and Percussions. Back in October we featured New York-based band Atomic Tom, performing a song using only iPhone apps.

Once again, I’m amazed by the results some people can accomplish by solely relying on modern Apple devices and applications. Check out the video below, then tweet it. It has to go viral.

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Shocker: iPad 2 Won’t Use AMOLED

As noted by 9to5mac, Digitimes published yet another report last night about the next generation iPad – or, “iPad 2” – claiming that Taiwan-based company Coretronic has been selected to supply the backlight units (BLUs) for the new device to Chimei Innolux and LG Display.

The second generation iPad is expected to hit the market at the end of the first quarter of 2011 and suppliers in the supply chain are estimated to start shipments in the first quarter.

It is understood that Coretronic is the only BLU supplier of CMI for iPad 2, while LG Display is getting iPad 2 BLUs from Coretronic and Radiant Opto-Electronics.

So according to this new report, the next iPad won’t use the popular AMOLED screens (well, at least popular on Android devices thanks to Samsung’s “Super AMOLED” units) but will keep relying on standard LCDs instead.

Surprised, huh? Don’t be: Apple never really liked AMOLED screens, and with the iPhone 4 they decided to deploy their own LCD solution with extremely high resolution and call it “Retina Display”. The iPad also comes with IPS (in-plane switching) technology, which allows for improved viewing angles and picture quality.

The real question is: will the iPad 2 have some sort of Retina resolution?

Infinity Blade Now Available In The App Store - Not The U.S. One Yet

Infinity Blade is one of the most anticipated games for iPhone and iPad to hit the App Store this holiday season. Demoed on stage at Apple’s event back in September and released as a tech demo known as Epic Citadel back then, the game is built on top of the Unreal Engine 3 for iOS devices and it shows impressive graphics and animations. Apparently, Steve Jobs couldn’t believe the game was running on an iPhone when he first saw it either.

As previously confirmed in November, the game changed its name from Project Sword to Infinity Blade and was set to come out in December. TouchArcade also revealed that the app would be released on December 9th at $5.99, but we just took a look inside the New Zealand App Store and found out that, as usual, iTunes started propagating the app on its own due to time zone differences.

Infinity Blade is available at $8.29 over there, and you can take a look at the screenshots and full description from iTunes below. The app isn’t available in other stores for now, but we believe it’ll start propagating in European ones in 10 hours. The app is universal and runs on iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad, iPod Touch 3, or iPod Touch 4 – with Retina Display-ready graphics optimized for the iPhone 4.  From what we can read in iTunes, it seems like there will be customization possibilities, a “dynamic single player campaign” and support for Game Center leaderboards and achievements.

We’ll take a deeper look at the game once it becomes available in the U.S. Store. Read more

Hardware Orientation Lock for iPad Returns … As a Case

MacLocks just added what it calls “The First iPad Security Cable Lock”, the iPad Lock - a clear plastic iPad case that can be closed with a lock (same locking mechanism as a bike lock) and tethered to whatever your heart desires with a coated steel cable. In Apple-fashion, “This makes the iPad Lock flexible and light, not to mention stylish, so you can easily pack it in your bag and take it with you wherever you go!” Once it’s secured, the only way to remove your iPad is with a key. The case itself is $39.95, or you can purchase the bundle (case & lock) from MacLocks for $64.95.

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