Posts tagged with "iPad"

Google+ for iOS: Now Available For iPad and iPod touch

Looking to use the official Google+ app on your iPad or iPod touch? There’s a Google+ update in the App Store waiting for your geeky fingers to download the app on your tablet or smart-mp3 player. While Google+ doesn’t have an iPad specific version (you’re looking forward to 2x mode), you can now use it on devices outside of the iPhone (or your Android smartphone).

Google is also giving you additional control for their huddle feature via the app, as well as aggregated circle add notifications, stability improvements, and bug fixes.

You can download the latest Google+ update here.

[via The Next Web]

Chinese Customs Crack Down on Smugglers Moving iPads By Crossbow and Pulleys

Yes, you did read that headline correctly. Smugglers moving Apple products from Hong Kong to mainland China were caught doing so via a clever pulley system that had iPhones and iPads being hoisted over the border with a large tote bag, hook, and a crossbow that was used to initially get the 300 meter cable over the Sha Tau Kok river. In an operation consisting of six smugglers, iPads and iPhones could be transferred across the river in about 2 minutes under the cover of darkness, where products were lifted up to the 21st floor of a residential block in Shenzhen. After a surveillance operation, Chinese customs moved in arrested the six smugglers, recovering 50 iPhones and 50 iPad 2s in the process worth 300,000 yuan (around $47,000).

Smugglers attempting to smuggle electronics into China hope to rake in profits — devices sold in China are much more expensive than devices sold in Hong Kong. Smugglers can purchase electronics in Hong Kong (whom have some of the cheapest prices in the world) and resell devices in the mainland, where they can profit off of the higher prices. Smugglers simply can’t move electronics across the border since as China requires a 20% property tax for all electronic devices brought into the country. Thus, we end up with a situation like this — smugglers get creative in an attempt to make a quick buck selling devices back home.

As for the high-wire act, there’s a video report to go with it, showing off the equipment the smugglers used to move items between the border which we’ve posted after the break.

[via WSJ, (image via) M.I.C. Gadget]

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iPhone and iPad Dominate Smartphone and Tablet Choices for Small and Medium Businesses

The iPhone and iPad are leading the charge in small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) for smartphones and tablets according to Intermedia. In a study by Intermedia, who handles 350,000 premium hosted Microsoft Exchange servers, Apple’s iOS devices are dominating the stats when it comes to ActiveSync activations performed by the company. The iPhone has an overwhelming 57% coverage in this bracket and the iPad has 21% as well. That leaves only about 22% for competitors such as Motorola, HTC and others. The nearest competition to the iPad’s 21% is Motorola with only 9%. See above graphic for full stats.

The graph data compares the use of ActiveSync devices in Intermedia’s clientele. ActiveSync is the syncing protocol that smartphones use to sync email and other information with Microsoft Exchange. Intermedia supports email, contact and calendar syncing for smartphones, including iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Windows 7 phones.

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Measures for iPad Is A Powerful Unit & Currency Converter

Back in 2009, I installed a simple currency and unit conversion utility on my iPhone called Measures. Developed by Michael Neuwert, I remember Measures as one of the first “popular” converter apps for the iPhone, one that actually managed to move thousands of sales back when the App Store was still relatively small. Two years and hundreds of thousands of app later (let alone the iPad and two new App Stores), Measures is coming back with an HD version built specifically to take advantage of the iPad’s screen. Retaining the same icon and UI color scheme of its iPhone counterpart, Measures HD packs 170 currency exchange rates (constantly updated over the air) and 1000 different units, organized in 40 categories.

I like Measures HD not because of its design, but because it’s functional. Measures may lack the amount of polish seen in any Tapbots or Iconfactory app, but as far as the actual unit and currency conversion goes, Measures works better than anything else I’ve tried on the iPad to date. There are two aspects of the app that truly stand out to me: the Favorites sidebar, and the fact that Measures doesn’t stop at normal units like those pertaining to length, area, speed, or temperature. Measures adds dozens of categories ranging from Male Shoe Sizes and Data Storage to Radioactivity, Male Sizes for suits/coats/shirts, and Typography. With all these types of “units” available at your fingertips, Measures lets you convert, say, a European shoe size to a UK or US one, or your milligram/deciliter blood sugar level to millimol/liter. And again: you can easily convert megabytes to yottabytes, short tons to pounds, and obviously US Dollars to Euros and other currencies as well.

Measures’ unit database is huge, and if it’s not the biggest one on the App Store yet, then it definitely get very close to it. Whilst most converter apps focus on providing a fresh interface for the usual units and currencies, Measures sacrifices some attention to the overall design (I don’t like the slider to adjust decimals and the looks of the keypad – but this is just personal taste) to focus on “real life usage” with options like the aforementioned shirt sizes, or fuel consumption and data storage. This is the kind of stuff I always need to check (especially when buying some cool t-shirt from a website that doesn’t list EU sizes), but that very few apps provide. In fact, most of the times I’m forced to look it up on Wikipedia. Speaking of which, Measures HD comes with a Wikipedia search function to look up the selected unit on the website’s database. Multiple Wikipedia articles (when found, otherwise it’s just a single one) are listed inside a popover, and you can decide to open the webpage within Measures, in Safari, or in Sophiestication’s Articles. Next to the Wikipedia button in the top toolbar, there’s also a “list” icon to see all converted results without being restricted to a single conversion.

Another nice feature is the Favorites sidebar, which enables you to save any conversion for quick access at a later time. If you find yourself converting Euros to Dollars pretty often, you might want to consider saving that conversion as a shortcut in the Favorites so you won’t have to use the (gimmicky) unit picker at the botton; Apple itself suggests in its Interface guidelines to use a “date and time picker” for iPad  inside a popover rather the main screen – I agree, as the result is not really pleasant in Measures and it feels unresponsive if your finger runs down to the iPad’s bezel.

Overall, I enjoy having Measures on my iPad because it’s useful. The app could use some UI refinements and re-thinking, but as it stands now it is the converter app for iPad with the largest array of options I’ve seen so far. You can download Measures HD at $1.99 on the App Store. Check out more screenshots of the app after the break. Read more

iPad 2 Getting Retro iPWN Gameboy Case

This is not for the Apple purists, the ones that leave their devices raw and uncovered or only clothe them in Cupertino-issued skins. But for the rest of the world, most people want their Apple products to be as original as the people that buy them. We’ve seen cases/covers in the past that look like classic Nintendo gaming systems but this one supersizes the original Gameboy for the iPad 2.

Lootiful already carries a series of iPWN cases that snap on the back side of your iPhone to make it look like a Gameboy. The iPad 2 version looks just like the iPhone version, only larger. The case not only provides protection from bumps and scratches, but retains full access to your touchscreen and all the buttons.

There has been no word on availability for the iPad 2 case, but according to the Lootiful site, pre-orders will be open soon. Pricing has not been announced yet either, but the iPhone versions retail for only $18. I agree with the header graphic, “It’s friggin’ sweet.”

I can only imagine someone carrying their iPad 2 on the bus and sitting down while a curious onlooker snaps some blurry photos and posts them as “Apple + Nintendo Collaborating on New Project - iPadBoy!”

[via TUAW]