Hungry Hungry Hippos for The iPad: An April Fools’ gag that everybody wants to be real
Every year, ThinkGeek comes up with some of the most far-out (fake) products for April Fools' Day. In the past, several of these fictional items would be met with great enthusiasm by the masses that the retailer of odd devices would actually make them. And that's what a lot of people hope to happen with this year's runaway favorite April Fools' product: the iPad version of Hungry Hungry Hippos. Read more...
Apple confirms imprecise iPad battery meter, says it’s by design
Apple today reacted to reports that the new iPad under-reports its battery status, saying a researcher's analysis was essentially correct but that that's how the tablet and its iOS software were designed.
Apple executive Michael Tchao told the AllThingsD blog -- operated by Dow Jones, the same firm that publishes the Wall Street Journal -- that the new iPad, like all devices powered by iOS, reports a fully-charged battery before it actually reaches 100%.
According to Tchao, Apple's vice president of marketing, the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch all display "100%" on their battery indicators before they are completely charged. Read more...
New iPad shortchanges users on battery life, says expert
Apple is shortchanging new iPad owners on battery power, an analyst said today.
"If you stop charging the iPad when the battery indicator says 100% you won't get the maximum running time," said Ray Soneira, president of DisplayMate Technologies, in an updated paper on the new tablet.
According to Soneira, when the iPad's battery meter first shows 100%, the tablet is actually charged only to 90% capacity, shorting users by more than an hour on the device.
That may jeopardize Apple's claim that the iPad can keep going for over 10 hours, said Soneira. Read more...
LTE option poses data dilemma for iPad, smartphone users
The new iPad's LTE option, which allows access to fast 4G networks, has also shocked some customers who found they can eat up an entire month's worth of data watching just a couple hours of streaming video.
For a long time, analysts and even carriers have urged customers to download videos and other large files over Wi-Fi to avoid the high price of using a cellular connection.
But that hasn't stopped owners of the new iPad and some recent LTE Android-based smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy Nexus from leveling renewed criticism at carriers like AT&T and Verizon Wireless for imposing high data fees. Read more...
Finally: A truly magical iPad
Everybody's excited about the new Apple iPad's high-resolution screen. But ultimately, the Retina display is just a pretty face. It can't do anything that the screens on previous models couldn't do.
In fact, just about all of the features that are considered "new" in the new iPad are really just bigger helpings of the old capabilities: More pixels on the screen. More graphics performance. More megapixels in the camera. More megabits per second with the mobile broadband connection. There's more of everything. But what's fundamentally different?
One of the least appreciated new features is one that truly brings entirely new capabilities to the iPad. That feature is Bluetooth 4.0 support. Read more...
Poll: Users diss ‘new iPad’ name for Apple’s next tablet
Apple's generic name for its new iPad -- that's the name, "the new iPad" -- got the thumbs down in a just-concluded poll of more than 1,100 Internet users.
SodaHead.com, which bills itself as the Web's "premier opinion-based community," started the vote last week after Apple unveiled the third-generation device, and wrapped up polling today.
The results of the poll, which posed the simple question "Do you like the name of the new iPad?" to site users, was a defeat for Apple: By a 53%-to-47% margin, voters picked "No, I liked the old format" over the alternative of "Yes, it's new and fresh!" Read more...
‘Siri, I have some some suggestions for you’
When Apple's new iPad was unveiled last week, one of the features users had hoped for didn't come with it. Siri, the voice-controlled personal assistant that's been such a hit on the iPhone 4S, wasn't among the tablet's new features. (Apple did add a dictation feature, but it has none of Siri's interactivity; all you can do is one-way dictation.)
Despite the disappointment of Siri users, this is actually not a bad move on Apple's part. Siri is still in beta and could use a little polishing before being rolled out to the iPad. Even though I found in my first month of use that it is good enough to change users' habits, Apple clearly wants to make damn sure Siri works as billed. Even in beta, Siri's easy interaction, fast results and sometimes quirky responses produce an emotional reaction that has encouraged people to use it -- a lot. Read more...
iPad dispute signals new era in trademark troubles
iPotato, isock, icouch, istove, i-you-name-it. An Internet search for "i'' words from A to Z will turn up just about any combination you might think up, from all over the world, only a handful of them related to Apple Inc.
Given its penchant for "iproducts," Apple's current troubles in China over the iPad trademark are not its first, and are unlikely to be its last. China's importance as a major consumer market is bringing fresh headaches for companies, and even celebrities, seeking to protect and claim brand names. That's apart from the usual problems with piracy and other infringements.
Financially troubled Proview Electronics Co., a computer monitor and LED light maker, says it registered the iPad trademark in China and elsewhere more than a decade ago and wants Apple to stop selling or making the popular tablet computers under that name. Apple says Proview sold it worldwide rights to the iPad trademark in 2009, though in China the registration was never transferred. Read more...
iPhone 5 to retain glass back of iPhone 4 and 4S?
The next couple of weeks are going to belong to the iPad. It’s a given: it will be announced on Wednesday, will release (probably) a week or two later, and, in between, it will be talked about incessantly. However, there is another Apple device that’s capable of stealing a few headlines. Yes, iPhone 5 rumors are still coming.
The latest rumor claims to debunk much of the accepted line of thinking about the iPhone 5. Though many have been expecting to see an iPhone with an aluminum back (see our conceptualized iPhone 5), iLounge reports that the next iPhone will instead have either a glass or ceramic back.
If Apple went with a glass back for the next iPhone, then the design would probably look similar to the iPhone 4/4S. Even if it were thinner, more widely-proportioned, and had a larger screen, there are only so many ways that you can sandwich two pieces of glass together. The back wouldn’t likely be rounded (that would make it highly prone to scratches and breaks), so we’d probably see two flat pieces of Gorilla Glass again held together by a stainless steel antenna.
That Gorilla Glass could be the key to making the next iPhone thinner. When Corning announced Gorilla Glass 2 at CES, the company made it clear that it wasn’t stronger than standard Gorilla Glass; instead, it offered the same strength in a thinner package. Apple, who worships at the altar of lightness and thinness, wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to use the new material — especially since Apple already uses Gorilla Glass in the iPhone.
In addition to the larger screen and thinner design, frequent iPhone 5 rumors include LTE, an NFC chip, and (less likely) the removal of the home button. It’s commonly expected to ship either in June/July — like the first four iPhones — or in the iPhone 4S’ October release slot.
(Source: geek.com)
Apple to ban stealthy iPhone contact data harvesting
Shortly after two U.S. Congressmen asked Apple to answer questions about iPhone and iPad apps that snatch users' contact lists without permission, the Cupertino, Calif. company promised it will address the issue with a future software update.
Earlier today, Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) sent a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook asking him about iOS apps that have harvested users' address book information without permission.
Waxman and Butterfield cited reports that Path, which sells an iOS online journal app, was grabbing users' address books and uploading them to its servers. After the allegations went viral, Path's CEO apologized and said the company deleted the collected address books from its servers. Read more...
Pen-shaped e-reader concept leads to more questions than answers
After the introduction of the iPad in 2010, focus has shifted away from traditional eReaders. The leading manufacturers in the field — Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo — have all since introduced small tablets that are only e-readers in terms of software. The evolution of the e-ink reader is no longer on the forefront of most tech enthusiast’s minds.
But that hasn’t stopped a company called Paperus from trying something new. And by something new, we really mean it. As you can see above, Paperus’s concept video shows a pen-shaped device that lets you read by simply rotating it. It isn’t clear what tech is behind the device, or if it is even going to be manufactured. What we have is a concept video, a notice of “patent pending,” and a German website that promises “the new star will be born.” Read more...
More than 50 percent of Facebook’s monthly active users are on mobile apps
We already knew Facebook’s various mobile apps were popular, be they on Apple’s iPhone or iPad, on devices running Google’s Android operating system, or even on BlackBerry devices and feature phones.
But the company hadn’t released the exact numbers on its mobile “monthly active users” (MAUs) since September, as TechCrunch reports, when it revealed that it had about 350 million mobile MAUs. But with the filing of Facebook’s initial public offering this week, the company also revealed that in December it reached 425 million mobile MAUs, out of 845 million monthly active users across all platforms. Read more...
David Cameron gets custom prime-ministering iPad app
The crack coders assembled by the Cabinet Office have a new mission: making an iPad app for David Camerons.
The app will contain the latest figures on NHS waiting lists, crime, unemployment and other public sector data according to a report by The Times. It will also allow him to read Civil Service documents on the tablet and will pull in "real-time" information from Google and Twitter among other news sources. Advisers got the idea after a trip to the US.
But it seems it could take the gov coders three months to get it right. The app isn't expected to be ready till March according to the newspaper. Read more...
German court issues injunction against Apple products
A German court on Friday ruled that Apple's iPhone and iPad devices infringe a Motorola patent and issued an injunction against sales of the products in Germany, in the latest move in a long series of legal battles between the companies.
However, Apple can appeal the ruling, requesting a stay of the injunction in the meantime, according to Florian Mueller, who has been closely following patent lawsuits in the mobile industry. Mueller is a patent expert who sometimes does consulting work for companies including Microsoft.
Apple did not reply to a request for comment about its intentions.
Should Apple make the appeal but the court decline the stay, Motorola must post a €100 million ($134 million) bond before the court will enforce the injunction, Mueller said. He posted the ruling, issued in German, on his blog. Read more...