Posts tagged with "iPad"

Apple, The Next Step Is AirFiles

I installed iOS 4.2 beta on my iPad, but haven’t been able to check out the new AirPlay or AirPrint features yet: I don’t have an Apple Airport Express station to configure with my stereo, nor I have a compatible HP printer in the office. Still, I know these two new features pretty well: AirPlay is Apple’s take on how you should be able to consume digital content in the living room, AirPrint allows you to print documents from your iPad and iPhone with a few taps. Both of them are great features. I want to focus on AirPlay, though: as Seth Weintraub puts it, AirPlay is Apple’s “go to market” strategy - in a way that this single feature will let users easily hook their iPhones and iPads to the Apple TV to effortlessly share SD content, and eventually pay for HD versions using Apple’s TV own rental system. Any kind of video content can be streamed using AirPlay, as long as it uses a standard media controller and it’s encoded using the popular H.264 video format.

I haven’t tried it personally, but I already know AirPlay is going to be huge amongst iPad and iPhone owners once the new Apple TV will be available. This kind of one-tap streaming and sharing of content between devices has got me thinking, though: what if Apple shipped “AirFiles”, a built-in system to share any kind of documents across mobile devices and computers? Read more

Walt Mossberg Reviews iPad e-Reader Apps

In his latest column for the WSJ, technology pundit Walt Mossberg has taken a look at three different eBook reader applications for the iPad: Apple’s own iBooks, Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook app.

The verdict is interesting: according to Mossberg, they’re more similar than different. Read more

Airplay is Apple’s ‘Go to Market’ Internet TV strategy→

Airplay is Apple’s ‘Go to Market’ Internet TV strategy

Apple’s three year campaign to get content producers to shift from Flash to H.264 has been largely successful and is now at a tipping point. You can now view ‘most’ video on the web on H.264.

That means you can watch most Internet video on AppleTV over Airplay.  The day AppleTV is released, you’ll be able to watch free SD versions of clips shows that appear on ComedyCentral.com like the Daily Show and Colbert Report via Airplay.  You theoretially should be able to watch Hulu Plus so long as it is encoded in H.264 (and doesn’t get blocked once the networks figure out what Apple has done).

Killing Flash video (or at least making content providers offer H.264 alternatives) is what made all of this all possible. Whatever video you watch on your iOS device, you can now watch on your  HDTV.

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Grazing: My New Favorite iPad Browser

I feel bad writing this. No, let me rephrase: I love when facts prove me wrong. I especially love when third party developers of iPad applications prove me wrong. A couple of weeks ago I wrote a piece called “Your Alternative iPad Browser Sucks” in which I basically stated that every alternative browser I had tried on the iPad couldn’t keep up with the elegance and powerful engine of Safari. I still stand by that statement: 3rd party developers are not Apple and I’m pretty sure Safari has got some exclusive features buried deep down in the code engine (such as memory management) which 3rd party devs have not access to.

What’s great now is that I found an alternative that doesn’t suck. Actually, it’s a beautiful, powerful and feature-rich app for iPad called Grazing that has been sitting on my homescreen for a week now. Grazing is now my favorite alternative browser for iPad. Read more