Review for Phone Nokia

Concept Nokias: Nokia Stealth and Nokia N82 Dragonfly

2010-03-14T09:59:00.001-07:00

Just when all the phones are become minimalistic rectangular slates of touch screens, here are a couple of concept alphanumeric keyed candybars to give us a blast of some unconventional monoblock designs.

The first is the Nokia stealth, named after the pictured stealth bomber, Lockheed’s angular F-117 Nighthawk. The stealth theme reminds me somewhat of the Prism….actually no,…the rugged 5140

I would totally love a high end device called Stealth – sleek black smartphone/MeeGo pocket slate with a hidden “stealth” touch screen.

The second is a slightly more convenstional looking (at least from the top half) Nokia N82 dragonfly. The N82, apart from being the undisputed king of Nokia’s photography line (and possibly the mobile phone world) is also known for it’s slightly small and awkward keyboard. The look achieved here resembles something quite insect like, as expected being called the dragonfly (though there is a hint of Orange SPV)

The Bug Like quality also reminds me of another super durable Nokia – the 5100.

Reginald Shola Hingston via Concept Phones

Video: Raemote – Maemo 5 N900 infra red remote for your for Mac Mini, MacBook and MacBook Pro

2010-03-14T09:58:00.000-07:00

From perlinet, this Widget is an Apple Remote on your N900’s desktop, turning your N900 into an infra-red remote for your Mac Mini, MacBook and MacBook Pro

Download package

via thp

Now what about the TV-iR remote. Is that out yet? (Those were the first videos shown of N900 hacking abilities…)

Quick Launch any four Nokia N900 Maemo 5 apps from the status bar!

2010-03-14T09:57:00.000-07:00

Quick launch gives you immediate access to any four apps from the status bar. Just tap on the status bar and your panels will show up with your four chosen shortcuts. The four in the screenshot are just examples. And of course, with the N900, the new app is added amongst the many other windows you may be running simultaneously. Even though I’ve got quick access to apps from my main homescreen, this makes it even quicker for me to get open file manager/web/media player and calculator. Great if I’ve got a different homescreen in use, and/or within another app.

DOWNLOAD from App Manager. You may need to have additional catalogues to see Quick-lauch. CLICK

What’ll be your four quick launch apps?

By default, the choices are blank. To edit, go to settings.

Quick Launch settings are in the N900’s main settings panel.

You’ll get a choice of four shortcuts. Just tap to select

You’ll get a list of your installed apps

Then click save when done.

Now you have access to your chosen four apps extremely quickly from any view where the status bar is present.

Mauku behind.

Nokia RANT: Response to Ovum’s “Report” on Nokia’s ‘failures’.

2010-03-14T09:56:00.000-07:00

N900 vs X6 vs N97

Hmm, I doubt anyone will read this but I couldn’t sleep (trying to finish off some presentations…meh, they want us to use OHP :[) and seeing these “reports” circulated got me kinda worked up.

I haven’t made a proper Nokia rant in a while. Nokia’s been churning a lot of awesome sauce since N900 (Free Ovi Maps Navigation, Increased Q4 profits/market share, MeeGo, Qt, Symbian^3/4, Improved S60V5 Ovi Store, and generally other N900 related things). Check out this article from Mobile Industry Review: Nokia is back and beginning to rock

I read digitime’s take on Ovum’s “report” yesterday morning but ignored it as nonsense Nokia bashing bandwagon. But I’m seeing more sources passing off “reports”, e.g. V3 which have NO backing other than passing of “he said, she said”

Now I like ranting against Nokia and I’ll be the first to jump on Nokia bashing bandwagons – BUT only when it’s warranted. Let’s take the N97 as it’s such an easy shot.

Nokia made huge mistake in not giving N97 more RAM. Huge failure. Ignore the numbers of 128MB ram, at startup you get around what – 40MB if you’re lucky?
N97 should have been at least on 500MHz just for the sake of longevity (ideally the expected 600MHz). i.e. it was ok for use for a month of release but felt out dated soon after, and gets so much more painful to use when ever you try out faster competitors.
N97 perhaps should have had a capacitive screen. I know there are those that are happy with resistive. I personally prefer the feather touch sensitivity that capacitive offers and don’t mind the frequently mentioned trade offs.
N97 was bestowed with a miniscule amount of C: memory. 32GB memory but around 50MB for app installation. A few firmwares kinda sorted it out whereby any installating to E: no longer phantomly depleted C:.
N97 has appalling quality control – batches weren’t all manufactured at the same standard.
Symbian^1 and it’s awful bugginess, lacklustre appeal – seemingly S60 3rd edition with touch screen, i.e. no touch optimization was the biggest culprit to anyone’s frustrations with the N97. It has taken half a year and several firmware upgrades to get it to a relatively usable point. This was one of the major reasons O2 CPW ceased selling the N97 due to huge returns – same fate temporarily faced with the Symbian friendly Satio.
There’s more but this post isn’t about bashing the N97, just an example to show I like you are very much aware of its faults and I’m not blindly singing Nokia’s praises.

Like I said, I don’t mind if Nokia’s bashed when it’s warranted. I maybe disappointed of Nokia but in cases like the points above, Nokia are indefensible so writers are just reporting it like they see it. It’s a warranted “attack”. But in this case it is not. Let’s take a look at what Ovum (and via V3/digitimes) says about Nokia’s failings.

“Nokia’s current smartphones, including the flagship N97 and N97 mini, run on ARM11 below 500MHz with an anaemic 128MB of RAM, a point that most other platforms have abandoned”

OK. Great. Ovum and co are fine with pointing out the lower specs but ignore publishing N900’s the ARM Cortex-A8 600 MHz, PowerVR SGX with OpenGL ES 2.0 support, 256 MB RAM, 768 MB virtual memory. Note how all sources that will mention this report by Ovum will easily brush this off, see point 2.

1.5 “Nokia’s flagship hardware is underpowered compared to rivals…”

Nokia’s biggest failure is continuing to market the N97 as the flagship. The N900 spins rings around the N97 and most of its competitors. Have you seen how well the N900 multitasks and surfs the entire web with flash?

Everyone knows the Maemo 5 pocket computer is the flagship, whether or not Nokia admit it. Nokia themselves confessed the failures of the N97. I always felt it was some sort of interim solution to keep some attention on Nokia ( i.e. not focus too much resources because something better on the horizon – aka N900) but it has been more detrimental due to poor consumer experiences.

That’s what I hate most about the N97 is that it hyped up so much, promised too many things but not only did not deliver, it contained frustrating faults that you’d be annoyed to see in 2007 let alone 2009. e.g. the constant need for hard reset. (now fixed for me but still affects a lot of users)

Plus, it is not all about hardware specification (even Ovum say it’s not all about clock speed despite the vibe of the article implying otherwise). I can’t find the benchmark tests webpost but the N900 on “only” 600MHz was performing extremely closely to Nexus One’s 1Ghz in rendering web pages. In terms of general UI navigation, iPhone 3G with 412Mhz (less than N97’s 434MHz) is arguably snappier with more appealing UI.

It’s not about numbers. Windows Mobile for quite a while NEEDED much higher spec’d hardware than Symbian as it was resource hungry.

“pound for pound” Nokia handsets can do a lot more with the given hardware. Software wise, Nokia’s have a lot more inbuilt features that I’m surprised competitors have to achieve by 3rd party apps or hacking their phone or waiting 2 years for an update *cough, copy paste, video*.

2. The N900 is the only Nokia handset to use a next-generation chipset, which Renowden described as “surprising” and potentially harmful to the firm’s market share.

Apple only has ONE phone using the next generation chip set. But of course, that doesn’t matter. As much as I’d like Nokia to SPAM us with high end smartphones like HTC, history says that with Nokia they CANNOT be too hasty. HTC (and Moto) can afford to churn out Android devices one after another as they’re not actively developing the OS, Google is. Maemo (now MeeGo) and Symbian is very much continuing publicly to be a work in progress. Despite the N97 taking 6/7 months after announcement to appear, it still was, a rushed handset.

Nokia have a vast range of smartphones of which a huge proportion cater for the Mid-low end, yet are still smartphones. E.G. 5230 with ARM 11, 434 MHz. So proportion wise, it seems confusing that the N900 perhaps is the sole handset with next gen chipset. Perhaps the X6 should have been on it too, but that’s another post.

3. “Another area where Nokia is struggling is screen resolution and technology. Of the 20 handsets with highest screen resolution, Nokia has just one – again, the N900″

A slower processor or poor touch-screen resolution affects users’ experiences of devices,

Phones of 2009

N900 800×480
N97 640X360
N97 mini 640 x 360
X6 640×360
5530 640×360
5800 640×360
5230 640×360
HTC Hero 320×480
iPhone 3GS 320×480
Palm Pre 320×480

Excuse me, what’s this about Nokia’s poor screen resolution? The N900 is double the iPhone. Yes that’s one. Then there’s the N97, N97 mini, X6, 5530, etc. which are all still higher resolution.

And exactly what is this “highest screen resolution”? 800X480 isn’t the highest anyway available on smartphones today. This is just another blatant smear to paint Nokia as failing.

Please. There are actual places where you could have taken genuine shots at Nokia and I would have sung along with you, but his is just blatant misinformation.

4″A slower processor or poor touch-screen resolution affects users’ experiences of devices,”

Actually, ideally if you had a slower processor, you’d also want a lower screen resolution. The N97 probably would have been faster if it dealt with the lesser 320×480.

Most possibly, it’s to do with being RESISTIVE rather than CAPACITIVE (which the X6 already supports).

How can the Nokia touch phones be criticised on screen resolution when it has higher resolution than the Jebus phone?

Renowden added that the launch of Symbian^3 around the middle of the year could see Nokia announce several new products, but that until then the firm is caught between two stools.

“If Nokia announces new products in the coming months it could hurt sales of devices already on the market. However, due to the lack of announcements, people are wondering what the company has in the pipeline,” he said.

I don’t know what Nokia’s really got coming. Rumoured handsets (N98/N8) have some really enticing specs. The Symbian Roadmap points to tons of good things on Symbian’s future in terms of upcoming hardware to be utilized, such as multiple core processors.

Nokia has mentioned they will be cutting down on number of devices released to focus on some really excellent handsets instead of several diluted and dud ones.

I’d prefer Nokia to take their time and get their new flagship right than rush it and just disappoint everyone, most of all their fans.

The extract of Ovum’s report is available here http://www.ovum.com/news/euronews.asp?id=8453.

and it is the only major manufacturer still producing multiple smartphones in the candy bar/numeric keypad form factor.

And it is the only major phone manufacturer that’s number one in sales and market share? Why? Because of these multiple smarphones in candy bar/numeric keypad (and other factors). Some people just want a cheap phone, with a standard keypad. Because Nokia can accomplish it, that phone just happens to be a smartphone too! e.g. C5

And so what if there’s more than one alphanumeric smartphone from Nokia? If we talk this time on proportion, Nokia’s projected to continue increasing Touch, Touch Qwerty and QWERTY smartphones. Nokia already have 8 touch screen phones (not counting special editions), 7 symbian, and one Maemo.

The real issue maybe Nokia’s immediate ability to respond. They’re a big ship. The biggest one out there and it’s taking a while to make that U-turn. But they’ll definitely do it. The real unknown is whether Nokia will still be sailing in the same waters or if the game has shifted yet again.

It seems to win the next game, it’s not about being the best player, it’s changing the rules so that you’re the only one who scores points.

Nokia OVI Player 2.1 released

2010-03-14T09:55:00.000-07:00

Earlier today, Nokia released the latest 2.1 version of their OVI Player which boasts to have “Better performance and experience” as Maulik Sailor at OVI blog explains that Nokia have listened to our concerns and purposely designed and released this update with “quality, performance and user experience” in mind and they also mention it should improve the comes with music experiance.

So, what exactly is better?

We have re-worked music downloads functionality to make it more reliable. You can now pause and restart downloads from the Nokia and Ovi Music stores. Ovi Player will automatically retry any failed downloads and will also preserve uncompleted downloads on application restart.

With the latest Nokia Ovi Player you now can automatically import your music library from iTunes and all the manual playlists that you created in iTunes (however, iTunes DRM files and smart playlists will not be imported).

We have also provided a new ‘Play’ control above column headers in detailed view. Simply click this button and all the containing tracks will be added to the Player Queue and played sequentially.

There are new tooltips for tracks in the Playlists and Player Queue. These tooltips are visible when hovering over a track and will show you Artist, Album and Artwork for the track.

We’ve made it easier to select the Music Store for your region (note that you will need a credit card for that region to purchase any tracks) and change the Proxy settings. Just hit F4 key and all this pops up in the Options dialogue window.

The new version is more robust and memory efficient when compared to the previous version.

Finally, we have also made it possible to hide the start-up screen, so you can carry on using other applications without being interfered by the Nokia Ovi Player.

Nokia are always improving their services, and releasing game changing things like the Comes with Music and Free Voice Navigation. There are areas which Nokia can be proud of and hopefully we keep seeing more.

The New Nokia C6 – the best keyboard from a Nokia touch/QWERTY hybrid?

2010-03-14T09:54:00.000-07:00

3.2" touch screen, 640x360. 4 row QWERTY keyboard.

On Friday, a touch-qwerty hybrid from Nokia’s Cseries surfaced. The Nokia C6.

I wasn’t expecting anything like this from the core series. I thought they’d at least be non-touch like the recent C5.

The C6 seems like a QWERTY/Touch hybrid for the masses. This is exactly the reason why Nokia’s range of smartphones might have a significant proportion that’s technically ‘underpowered’ compared to the competition. (I’m assuming it doesn’t have 1GHz processor)

NOT because they are helplessly lagging behind as Ovum’s recent “report” suggested.

But because Nokia is catering for mid-low end consumers who may want a piece of the smartphone pie but can’t or don’t want to pay high end prices. (Eventually those high end features trickle down, take the 5800 – Nseries grade circa 2008). This might be big if it hits 150-240GBP range.

Superficially, the C6 appears to be one of Nokia’s 5800 with a side slider QWERTY keyboard. However, it has the tiled homescreen interface reserved for Nokia’s N97/mini/future Symbian^3 devices.

Is it Symbian^3? It’s using the Symbian^3 style theme/wallpaper (and some other slight changes).
But to have Symbian^3, it would need to have processing power much higher than the N97/mini right? (If not, great news for N97 users if it means you might get S^3).
So could this be the first 600MHz Symbian touch phone from Nokia and NOT the fabled X10?
That dialpad is more reminiscent of S60 5th Edition rather than having those “dot indicators” of which homescreen you’re in.
Most likely, it is S60 5th.

Anyway, onto the keyboard. It seems a standard Nokia fare at first but there are some marked improvements.

THE KEYBOARD

Love it or hate it, the C6 has a D-Pad which eats a lot of space that could have been better served by having more keys. (Potentially 8 more – see crude paint job below)
I don’t know what Nokia has against having a dedicated numbers row.
- When they have a 3-row, an extra row would bring numbers row with secondary symbols as standard keyboard layout, but no.
However, Ignoring the dpad/arrows, C6 has the most buttons on a Nokia touch/QWERTY hybrid keyboard.
- More than the N97 (33), N97 mini (34) and N900 (34) as C6 has 39 buttons!
It has two shift buttons for toggling caps lock, one on the left, the other on the right.
It retains the symbols button to get additional symbols (easier than maemo 5’s silly 2 button combination)
There’s a Control button. It seems it can also put the phone into silent mode. Control might be for easier copy and paste.
Function button. The diagonal arrow suggests this is for secondary keys (like N900).
Basic punctuation keys have dedicated buttons so you won’t need to press a button first to activate full-stop, comma or apostrophe .,’ This was a silly flaw in the N97, slowly improving with the N900/N97 mini (though it was still stupid to have apostrophe on the M)
The Spacebar is in the middle (technically) when you’re holding the C6 (again see crude paint job below)

The only uncertain thing is the tactile feedback which I can’t glean from images alone. But if it’s on the same level as the N97 mini or N900 (fingers crossed, better) the C6 might potentially have the best keyboard from a Nokia Touch/QWERTY hybrid.

That’s not to say it’s the best out there (hello Touch Pro 2). Nokia is slowly getting the idea that if it’s worth putting a QWERTY keyboard, there should be investment in making a really good one (as opposed to just ticking a box). Ideally I’d have something like the N920 concept keyboard – or this N900/n92o keyboard mashup but that’s just me.

Not shown as it would take too much time...A dedicated numbers row could be achieved if the QWERTY shifted one key to the right (like N900) so you have Function/Control/Symbols on one side, freeing up the bottom row to take the z-m row of letters. The spacebar would then move to the right like Nokia likes.

Should you use Firefox Mobile or the stock N900 MicroB browser? [A Comparison]

2010-03-14T09:52:00.000-07:00

There’s a browser war going on, but it’s not the typical IE vs. Firefox series of battles. No, on the N900 it’s Mozilla vs. Mozilla, brother vs. brother, with the stock MicroB browser on one side and the latest Firefox Mobile 1.0 on the other. Which one is better? It’s a tough call, that’s for sure.

I tested both browsers under the same conditions (Home wi-fi connection, clean reboot, empty caches) with my Nokia N900. For the timing tests, I used XNote Timer and took the average of three times.

And now for today’s events…

Startup Time

How long it takes each browser to open and load the default screen, after a clean reboot.

Firefox: 7.06 secs
MicroB: (stock browser) 3.79 secs

Loading Static Web Pages

How long it takes to open up the famous “Nokia Phone Blog” and others.

Firefox
The Nokia Phone Blog: 11.96 secs
Consumerist: 14.17 secs
eBay: 7.56 secs

MicroB
The Nokia Phone Blog: 8.75 secs
Consumerist: 13.47 secs
eBay: 7.09 secs

In addition to loading pages slightly faster than Firefox, MicroB seemed to be more responsive when scrolling around large web pages.

Loading Flash Web Pages

The time necessary to load Macromedia’s official Flash page with embedded video, and a Colbie Caillat YouTube music video – “Begin Again”.

Firefox
Flash.com (redirects to macromedia flash site): 32.42 secs
YouTube video: 12.45 secs

MicroB
Flash.com: 40.05 secs
YouTube video, same as above: 13.17 secs

Firefox definitely seems to handle Flash loading better than MicroB. I’m not quite sure why. When it came to actual videos, however, both browsers sucked pretty equally, with lots of choppiness.

Ease of Use/User Interface

Firefox
Firefox uses a finger-friendly swiping interface mechanic, with tabs on left side, options/bookmarks on the right, and the menu bar on top. Overall it’s quite intuitive, even though you’ll probably open the side menus accidentally at some point when navigating regular web sites.

My problems with the Firefox user interface were fairly minor – for some reason, Firefox tends to display nearly everything in a Times New Roman/Serif-ish type of font. I don’t know why. Nor did I see any options to change it (even in about:config, but I could have missed it). Keypad scrolling is painfully slow, since there’s no kinetic scrolling when using the arrow keys. And there’s definitely a lack of polish when it comes to icons, buttons, and other animations.

MicroB
MicroB interface is simple and clean. I liked being able to zoom in and out of web pages quickly by drawing circles on the screen, but at the same time the whole “mouseover” mode never really felt (or worked) right for me. And why is there no real “back” button? The back arrow goes to the History screen, which means an extra tap + another second or two waiting for the history screen to appear. Considering how much the back button gets used, I’m surprised that Nokia added an intermediate step instead of just emulating normal browser behavior of going back to the previous page immediately.

Bugginess/Stability

How often a browser crashes, or exhibits “unpredictable” behavior.

Firefox
Occasionally quit after opening. I couldn’t really duplicate the problem with much accuracy though.

MicroB
No issues, even when attempting to load bloatware sites like Yahoo! Mail.

Memory Usage

This one was probably the least scientific of all the tests. To measure memory usage, I power-cycled the phone, connected to my wi-fi network, opened up each browser, and went to Facebook.com. I then monitored the memory usage with the top command in X Terminal.

Firefox: 20.0% memory usage
MicroB: 27.9% total memory usage (12.8% browserd + 9.6% browserd + 5.5% browser)

I thought this was kind of interesting, considering that I have previously figured MicroB to be the smaller, leaner of the two when it came to memory footprints (not to mention that Firefox’s reputation with regards to memory usage hasn’t been too solid). However, apparently to decrease browser loading time, the MicroB browser was broken up into a couple different components – more about that here. So while MicroB definitely starts up faster, it also eats up more memory.

Extensions and Add-ons

Firefox
Decent support for extensions. There’s an add-on search and installation is as simple as tapping the “Add to Firefox” button. To get Flash working, however, you’ll need to follow these steps.

One extension of some note is Weave, which allows you to sync your Firefox settings over multiple devices, such as your phone and pc – keeping the same preferences, tabs, bookmarks, and history everywhere. It’s pretty cool to say the least.

MicroB
Bare-bones add-on support. No direct search capabilities, although you can always find extensions with Google. You’re also stuck with the “Nokia Single Sign On For Ovi” plug-in – it can’t be uninstalled. Bleh.

Browser-Exclusive Features

Firefox
Tabbed browsing, extensions search, Weave, customizability.

MicroB
Save webpages/images, find on page.

Conclusion

It’s hard to say with certainty which browser is truly “better”. If you’re looking for the speediest one of the two, the stock MicroB browser is quicker starting up and rendering static (non-Flash) pages. However, Firefox is slightly faster when it comes to Flash intensive pages like YouTube. It’s also more featured than the competition, even though it’s missing simple things like saving web pages and images.

Personally, I find myself using MicroB for the most part, except when I want to take advantage of Firefox’s Weave Sync plugin to view the tabs I currently have open on my pc. MicroB just seems faster, especially when scrolling around.

Five Games Actually Worth Playing on the N900

2010-03-14T09:51:00.000-07:00

Five Games Actually Worth Playing: N900 Edition

The N900 hasn’t exactly been a gaming powerhouse – just check out the Ovi Store, where there’s a total of ten games for download. That number includes both free and paid, and doesn’t look likely to change any time in the future. Fortunately, there’s some decent games to be had in the repositories, even though it’s hard to tell what’s actually good. So I’ve sifted through the junk and found five games worth playing.

Angry Birds

Not everything that comes out of the slim pickings Ovi Store is bad. Angry Birds is a new take on the old “Scorched Earth” tank warfare genre. But instead of a tank, you control a giant slingshot that shoots – wait for it – angry birds. The goal is to squash pigs with your limited number of birds. It’s a little easier (and harder) than it seems at first glance, because each level includes some kind of wood structure that can be toppled over like a Jenga tower. Hit one of those structures at the right angle, with the right amount of power, and you’ll knock it down and crush the pigs. Adding to the fun are special abilities that allow your birds to split into three in mid-air, or dive into targets, allowing you to break through harder materials like rocks.

It’s a great little time waster that makes excellent use of the touch screen. Controls are super simple – just tap and drag to pull the slingshot back at any angle, and let go to shoot it.

You can download Angry Birds for free from the Ovi Store. In fact, it’s the only thing even worth considering from the store.

Gweled

Did you know? This year is Bejeweled’s 10th anniversary. It’s not hard to see why the game has such staying power, considering it’s one of the most addictive casual puzzle games ever made. The mechanics are simple: getting three similar jewels in a row clears them out, shifting the rows downward with new jewels. There are combo bonuses and a timer that gets progressively faster, and Gweled also includes sound effects/music and high score saving.

If you’re looking for online multiplayer, check out Battle Gweled. Both versions are available in the extras repository.

Duke Nukem 3D

One of my favorite DOS games has been ported over to Maemo, and damn, it’s looking good. Everything that you always loved in the old Duke series is here, one-liners and all (the music pack is an optional 18mb download) – even accelerometer and proximity sensor support. You can aim using the touch screen, or just fire up the good ‘ol QWERTY to get things going with a wealth of key mapping options available. Note: you’ll also need to download a DUKE3D.GRP file which you can find on a number of web sites.

Duke Nukem 3D can be found in the extras-dev repository.

Numpty Physics

Numpty Physics is based on the famous Crayon Physics game, where you draw simple objects in order to solve puzzles. Your pen can produce different types of strokes that can connect objects, drop them from the sky, or just sit there in space. It’s got a slight learning curve, but for a free game, Numpty Physics shows an impressive amount of polish.

Numpty Physics can be found in the extras-dev repository.

ScummVM

Ah, yes. Everyone’s favorite adventure game emulator comes to the N900, bringing along a catalog of over a hundred games to the party. It’s hard to find something not worth playing here, whether its LucasArts’ classics such as The Secret of Monkey Island and Sam & Max Hit the Road, or Sierra’s oldschool King’s Quest series.

It was a tough choice deciding between ScummVM and DrNokSNES, but ultimately having an onboard keyboard and stylus made ScummVM better suited for the N900.

Honorary Mentions

Other games you might want to check out.

DrNokSNES: For console gamers, DrNokSNES provides some of the best SNES emulation (with sound!) I’ve seen on a mobile phone, with games running at a very respectable 25-30 FPS. It has all of the options you need: the ability to change default key mappings (even diagonal arrow key combinations), display options/zoom levels, and frame rate. On the fly, no less. You can also optionally hook up a Wiimote although this doesn’t seem to be much of a benefit.

Ur-Quan Masters: An extremely faithful port of the DOS/3DO classic Star Control 2. There’s a wealth of options available, but ultimately controlling your ships is less than stellar with the N900 keyboard.

DOSBox: Last year, I did a writeup on DOSBox for S60 Fifth Edition, and on the N97 (and PC) it was superb. However, on the N900 I couldn’t map my keys using the included key mapper, and I’ve been too lazy to look up the N900’s keyboard scancodes.

Airport and Exploder Touch: Airport is a clone of those airplane traffic controller games, and while the idea is solid, the touch controls need some help. Exploder Touch, on the other hand, is barely even a demo: there’s no sound, music, or anything that shows any kind of real polish. But the idea is pretty cool: you try to blow up little dots that bounce around the screen with a well-timed explosion.

Revisiting the Nokia N900, Two Months Later

2010-03-14T09:50:00.000-07:00

Two Months Later: More Apps, More Bugs

I originally reviewed the N900 back in early January. A lot has changed since then, both in my honest opinions of the device and what’s out there. So how has the N900 fared? Let’s find out!

Thoughts on Hardware

I was initially impressed with the N900’s build quality. I still am. I’d put the hardware as one of the N900’s biggest strengths, along with multi-tasking and customization. More on that later.

The keyboard, which I noted was “pretty much average”, is slightly better now. My typing speed on the keyboard has improved, although I still find myself making mistakes from time to time. And while the keyboard isn’t as tactile as I’d like it to be, it’s one of Nokia’s better QWERTYs. The ability to change your key layout in Maemo (aka hacking the config files) is also a bonus.

Thoughts on Software

If I could best sum up Maemo 5, the user interface, and the N900’s feature set in one word, that word would be unfinished. And the first reason I say this is because of a number of basic features that still haven’t made it to production. For example:

Portrait mode
MMS
Front camera support
Custom ringtones for contacts

Portrait mode is a great example that illustrates these shenanigans. Portrait mode is obviously doable, since the Phone application includes the option to run in portrait view, effectively rotating the screen and everything. But that’s only limited to the Phone app. PR1.1 also brought a new “easter egg” that activated a hidden portrait mode – but that was only for the browser.

To be honest, portrait mode really wouldn’t interest me too much IF there wasn’t an annoying bug associated with it. Occasionally, the phone will get confused and stay in portrait mode after switching from the Phone application to something else. And while this might sound cool – hey, portrait mode at last! – it’s broken (ie, the screen gets cut off). And when it happens, you also can’t activate the main menu. Real weird stuff.

I’ve managed to reset it most of the time (reboot fixes the problem 100% of the time, but that’s annoying), but I haven’t come up with a real tried-and-true method other than trying to continually switch to and from the Phone application.

Is it really that difficult to implement a full portrait mode option?

Bugs

That bug, along with several other gravity-defying bugs, are another reason why I consider the N900 unfinished. There’s a weird one I’ve been trying to figure out lately For some reason, when I receive a call and select Answer, the phone goes blank and locks itself. I realize that it’s probably assuming that the phone is next to my ear, but most of the time I’m actually trying to turn on the loudspeaker. I don’t know if it’s a proximity sensor issue (due to my screen protector, maybe – but this has never happened to me on any other Nokia with similar screen protectors) or a software issue, but other people on the talk.maemo forums seem to be having the same problem.

Customizations

There is one bright spot on the horizon, however, and that is customization. The N900 is absolutely one of the most hackable phones out there. I’m always pleasantly surprised by some of the stuff that people have managed to figure out – things like modifying the keyboard keys so that they suit your tastes, changing the pattern and colors of the LED notification light, switching system fonts, hto hook up PS3/Wii controllers to the N900 – the list just goes on and on.

These mods aren’t done lightly though – messing with your system files can potentially brick your N900 – but in most cases you can always reflash and start back at square one.

Thoughts on Apps and the App Store

I wish I could write about how the Ovi Store is taking off and hitting 1 billion app download miletones. Unfortunately, it’s not. Let’s see what’s currently available at the N900 App Store:

Number of Free Games: 11
Number of Paid Games: 0
Number of Free Apps: 43
Number of Paid Apps: 0
Number of Themes: 9
Number of Ringtones/Videos: 34

That is truly pathetic. While I can’t speak for the applications, most of the games are crappy demos (except for Angry Birds).

Repositories

On the other hand, the number of free apps on the repositories grows every day, thanks to the efforts of some dedicated developers. There’s a nice range of software available, even though I find that only a small percentage is really practical or useful for me. But overall it’s still an excellent alternative to the Ovi Store.

I’m still surprised by the lack of a decent Office app that allows you to edit .doc and .xls files. I would think this would be a priority for a “pocket computer”. Guess I’ll have to settle for Google Docs.

Conclusion

What’s the difference between the iPhone, the Google Nexus and its Android clones, and the N900? Polish. And the N900 still feels like a diamond in the rough.

I hestitate to recommend the N900 to regular users. It’s just missing some of the things that users take for granted these days – a couple of basic features, a loaded App store, and there’s still a number of bugs that would probably turn off newbies.

But for those who are willing to brave the waters and dive into phone customization (or patiently wait until some of the kinks get ironed out eventually), the N900 is potentially one of the most rewarding devices out there.

New Nokia Symbian in the Works

2010-03-14T09:49:00.000-07:00

Looks like we will get to see how the Symbian^3 looks and works when Nokia brings out the upcoming X10 (not to be confused with the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 –which is an Android Snapdragon smart phone).

The device has been leaked in a series of videos and still images and from what we have seen; this smart phone is still pretty much in its preliminary stages of development. Specs-wise the phone sits in the mid-spec range of devices. The Cortex A8 processor runs at 600MHz, which means that the new user interface will be radically dynamic in terms of animations and transitions.

The new phone is basically a touch screen device with a slide out keyboard. It’s a great template for attracting general and business user to try out the new operating system. No word yet on what exactly is different about the new OS, but with Symbian’s move to go open source, we can expect to see a lot of third party application support for the new phone.

The X10 is a continuation of the eXpressMusic series of Nokia devices. The last device was the 16GB version of the X6 which was a marketing upgrade over the older 32GB version. The 32GB version came with a “Comes with Music” unlimited download package with made the device unreasonably pricey.

Anyway, the X10 is also rumored to come with a 12 mega pixel camera that can record videos in 720p HD video quality. This will be the second Symbian device with HD video recording after the Sony Ericsson Vivaz.

Looks like Nokia has not abandoned the Symbian OS after all. There was plenty of news that the Finnish manufacturer might be dropping the OS after it adopted the Maemo for the N-series.

Read more about Nokia’s new smart phone at GSM Arena.

Patented: Nokia gets Movement to Energy on Mobile Phones

2010-03-14T09:45:00.000-07:00

According to recent reports, Nokia has just patented kinetic energy conversion technology for their mobile phones. Not to imply that Nokia will actually develop the new technology, but considering that Nokia is one of the most environmentally friendly companies on the planet, it is not surprising to see that they have taken the steps into creating what would be the first self-recharging battery.

By combining kinetic energy and piezoelectricity, this technology would convert movement (such as walking around or lifting your phone) into energy. Of course, when applied to other devices or other activities, there is great potential to be gained in this. When attached to exercise equipment, transportation vehicles and clothing, the technology would be able to gather chunks and bits of electricity that can be stored and used by small electronic devices such as smart phones.

Getting energy from movement gives the technology plenty of sources as we humans love to move about in our lives. If attached to a small device on our arms or legs, the technology would have the benefit of being able to use the excess energy we generate while at work or at play. It can even be attached to devices that are perpetually in motion such as cars and bicycle wheels for powering small things like signal lights and others. In a children’s playground, the technology can be used on swings and merry-go-rounds as it generates power to be used for park lights in the evening.

Of course, charging by this method would never give you a full charge even after a while day of running around, but being able to convert some of that energy would still be useful in the long run.

So far, experts are not expecting to see this technology actually being applied anytime soon. While the concept can be quite helpful, the actual technology itself is far from perfect with current energy conversion rates being a little too low to support commercial distribution.

Get to read more about the new technology patent from Nokia at Stuff TV.

Nokia N9 – The most powerful Nseries EVER!(?)

2010-03-06T07:40:00.001-08:00

Nseries – Flagship, high end multimedia
Eseries – Enterprise, business
Xseries – Music
Cseries – Core nokia portfolio

What’s really interesting is the explanation of the numbers.

What’s more, within each series of devices, we’re seeing a new range of numbers, from 1 to 9, each signifying the range of functionality on offer, and the approximate prices of the devices – 1 being the lowest and 9 being the highest.

So 9 will have the most functionality, 1 will have the ‘least’. There’s already a rumoured N8 which doesn’t leave much room if only N9 is left for “higher functionality”.

Imagine if someone confused an uBer powerful Nokia N9 for a Nokia C9 or X9 or E9. -_-

Here’s my little RANT on Nokia naming convention: (part of a bigger rant: http://bit.ly/5LWGBC)

I think Cseries > NUMBERS (might as well be a barcode)
Ideally for naming conventions (especially for flagship[s]) they should have a NAME!
Build on the reputation of that NAME with future models.
e.g. Pre – Pre Plus
e.g. (Possibly with Nexus two)
e.g. iPhone – 3G – 3GS. Different phones but reputation keeps improving despite previous phone’s misgivings.
even N95 – N95 8GB
Though I’m still wanting a simple 2 syllable NAME (at least for the flagship). It needs to roll of the tongue like melted butter. Something easily pronounced, something MEMORABLE.
Codes- e.g. Nseries N97/N79/N96/N95/N93, so easy for geeks/bloggers/tech peeps but not so for your average consumer.
N96 has NOTHING to do with N97. N96 isn’t completely superior to the N95. There is no obvious growth that you’re building on something previous. Each new Nseries, you really don’t know what you’re getting.
Previous RANT on Nokia naming:
http://bit.ly/5LWGBC
Looking forward to the N9 eNnine
Build on reputation, expand the number of people that know about that model (it may be a different device but same moniker will make mind share penetration easier)

Nokia S40 to offer Touch, QWERTY and Dual SIM support!

2010-03-06T07:39:00.004-08:00

It looks like Nokia have not forgotten about the trusty old S40 platform with the latest offering from Nokia’s Software Strategy White Paper indicating that in 2010 Nokia will be developing S40 powered handsets with capabilities such as “Touch”, “QWERTY keyboard support” and “dual SIM capabilities”, see the extract from page 8 of the white paper below for more info:

I would recommend checking out the paper as it also has a lot of other information about MeeGo, Symbian and Nokia in general:

http://www.nokia.com/NOKIA_COM_1/Technology/pdf/Nokia_software_strategy_white_paper.p

Skype for Symbian now in OVI store

2010-03-06T07:39:00.003-08:00

It looks like Nokia and Skype have an exciting announcement for us today with the release of the Official Skype application for all Symbian S60 S^1 devices. This application will allow you to:

Free Skype-to-Skype calls (Make and Receive)
Send and receive instant messages
Share files (i.e. pictures & video)
View users that are online
Import phone numbers from phone’s address book into the application.

You can download the application from Skype or from the OVI store.

The official statements from Nokia and Skype are below:

Jo Harlow (Nokia’s SVP for smartphones):

Symbian is enabling us to bring smartphones to more and more people and ensures scale for our solutions and compelling services, such as Skype. We’re seeing around 1.5 million downloads a day through Ovi Store now and believe that the Skype client for Nokia smartphones increases the amount of downloads further.

Russ Shaw (General Manager, Mobile at Skype)

With Skype for Nokia smartphones, more than 200 million smartphone users worldwide** will be able to take the Skype features they love with them on the move. Alongside Skype’s relationships with operators and handset manufacturers worldwide, making Skype available direct to consumers will help millions of users keep in contact with the people that are important to them without worrying about the cost, distance or whether they are away from a computer.

The Devices that are currently compatible are:

Nokia E71, Nokia N96, Nokia N85, Nokia 5320, Nokia 6210 Navigator, Nokia 6220 classic, Nokia N78, Nokia N79, Nokia E63, Nokia E66, Nokia N82, Nokia E51, Nokia N95, Nokia N95 8Gb, Nokia N81, Nokia N81 8 Gb, Nokia E90, Nokia E72, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia N97, Nokia N97 mini, Nokia X6, Nokia 5530.

Nokia’s Software Philosophy – FAIL!!!

2010-03-06T07:39:00.001-08:00

I’d like to just start by saying this is just a bit of a rant from myself, llaadd, about Nokia’s entire approach to software deployment. I’m not talking about the actual UI, how well it does or in some cases does not work, but actually the way Nokia allows networks to bully them into making specific versions of the phone software for every device they make.

This is probably one of the very places in which I think that Nokia should actually take a page out of the book of Apple where they have not allowed the Networks to touch the software which means that when a new software comes out, everyone, all around the world gets the update at the same time, which means that customers are always satisfied that their phone is running with the latest version and don’t get frustrated with waiting for one to be approved by particular networks, etc.

If we were able to see how much it costs Nokia to create custom firmware for each network in each country and for each of the hundreds of phones that they make, it’s probably in the millions of pounds which Nokia could put into so many other things such reducing the bugs in the early releases of software, and more uniform phones, for example if you buy a Nokia handset on T-Mobile or Orange in the UK, firstly you might be unlucky to get the Network logo plastered on the physical phone, and secondly also means sometimes you get phones which have wasted shortcut keys, such as a dedicated button (non-changeable) for using the internet on a S40 phone, which is annoying because most people with these types of lower end phones will never use the internet on the phone and those that do, already have a shortcut for it, which is holding for the 0 (Zero) key.

The other problem with allowing networks to change the software is when they do horrible things to phones such as disable important functions, like when Orange UK decided to disable VOIP on the N95’s a few years ago, which resulting in people who were eager to use features such as this to change the product code and therefore void any warranty they had.

One of the big reason’s I have decided to have this rant now if because I have been sitting here on my N900 which I bought from Nokia direct, just like I did my N97, my X6 and my N96 (well technically I won that hehe), and now over 2 weeks after a new software was announced, I still have not received the update on my device, which is bugging the hell out of me (to put it politely!!), but 2 weeks is not my real issue, it’s the fact that some updates seem to take Nokia several months to release.

I have actually spoken to many novice users, pro users and probably everything in between because I have worked in a phone shop for the past year and a half and just talking to people about their experience with Nokia devices and other manufacturers has helped me to understand what they get annoyed about and one of the most common thing is that people hear about updates which will fix the bug they have on their phone but do not understand why they can’t have it for months because a bunch of people have not approved it at the network, by which time another update is probably available. This just makes the consumers suffer, have a bad experience and get driven away from Nokia and even though they will have the same problem with another network they will move which is not good for the networks either, so who really wins!

OK, rant over now, I hope I have not put you to sleep, but I had this on my mind and just wanted to share, if you have any opinions of your own please comment below, would love to hear your thoughts.

Video: Typing with Bluetooth Keyboard (Nokia SU-W8) on the Nokia N900 – Finally replace your netbook?

2010-03-06T07:37:00.000-08:00

I was really looking forward to using a bluetooth keyboard on the N900.

With the brilliant web browser and insane multitasking, BT keyboard connection was basically the final step to really being that mobile computer – having a near full size keyboard to blast out really long blocks of text. e.g. on Notes, emails, messages, google docs etc.

But for some odd reason the N900 wouldn’t connect, and the past two firmware updates didn’t do anything (it may have been possible with work around, but not by default).

A couple of weeks back, there was a new fw update: V3.2010.02-08!

I only just remembered to check again if the keyboard would connect and indeed, N900 now connects to the keyboard. In this case, the Nokia SU-W8.

Micro Laptop? Word Doc editing with N900 SU-W8

I’m not sure about other BT keyboards but:

Once paired, N900 automatically connects to bluetooth keyboard
Automatically disconnects and turns off after length of inactivity
Keyboard layout is exactly the same as N900
i.e. Apostrophe ‘ is on M
To get secondary keys press Alt Gr
To get Caps lock press SHIFT
Ctrl is the same
Menu button/select/back of SU-W8 doesn’t work – it’s for S60.

I’m not sure if t’s the same for other BT keyboards but if so, hopefully another fw update will mean the keyboards are mapped to BT keyboard layout, not N900 (especially if you have a four row keyboard)

Type long messages from anywhere. There’s of course the added option to connect via TV out.

Now you can really get your N900 to replace a netbook (if you haven’t already :p).

Adjustable, hide away stand on the keyboard

WebMD Mobile – a rescue team in you iPhone

2010-02-02T07:16:00.005-08:00

Our life is so unpredictable that no one knows what might be prepared for us the next moment. The more we are prepared less serious are the outcomes. Free iPhone app called WebMD Mobile gives us such an opportunity to learn about different health tips concerning different symptoms, drugs, treatments and even first aid instructions.
You can get necessary information very operatively about different drugs, vitamins, natural herbs. In case not to be lost in emergency situations this app proposes emergency first aid trainings.
As soon as you download WebMD Mobile you can find the mannequin on the screen of your iPhone. Just tap him on the part of the body where you or your relates face problems and by zooming in on the body part you will be able to find all relevant information about the existing symptoms.
Although don’t disregard to consult your physician, as the app may not include complete or sufficient information concerning one particular case.
The app is free of charge and is available at he iTunes AppStore.

Want to have your own hotel Empire? –Hotel Mogul is at your disposal

2010-02-02T07:16:00.003-08:00

Hotel Mogul is a new amusing game for iPhone and iPod touch developed by Alawar Entertainment specializing in development, publication and distribution of casual games since 1999.
In the tutorial of the game you will learn out the main plot which consists of the activities of a young business woman Lynette who has lost all her built company and accumulated property after the divorce with her husband. The main aim she faces with a little sum of money in her pocket and a little pot of land in her property is to return back her former possessions. For this purpose she must buy back a vast global empire of hotels, restaurants and amusement parks.
The game contains over 35 different levels in five global regions; it also has four mini “find-it” games to continue the story; More than 15 building types with upgradeable features and 12 special awards to work towards throughout the game.
Hotel Mogul is an Arcade style game with quite colorful and bright design. The graphics are vibrating and the sounds are great.
If you decided to test the game before purchasing it you can download the light version which is also available. The light version includes ten of the games levels in two of the global regions, and a limited number of building types.

The cost of the game is $1.99 and you can download it right here.

Organize your life with DailyTracker

2010-02-02T07:16:00.001-08:00

If you intend to plan every moment of your life the DailyTacker app is the best solution for your iPhone. It’s a wonderful organizer for your everyday life as in personal part as well as in business part of it.
DailyTracker allows you to note such things as your habits, goals, illness, medication, food allergies, expenses, earnings, memories, news, and time spent on projects and much more that might have pace in your life. You can also stay up-to-date with the latest RSS feeds on your phone.
The pp allows classifying the information you note by the trend charts in order to find quickly and easily what you’re looking for. The other feature that this app acquires is the ability to add voice memos to tasks.
This app can serve you as some kind of reminder or necessary data server. Anyway by DailyTracker you will undoubtedly always be organized will never miss something that’s very important for you.
The app is available at the iPhone App Store.

Join as many friends as you want with your TextPlus

2010-02-02T07:15:00.004-08:00

SMS messaging is a common way of communication n the current world. One simple thing that this usual messaging lacks is the inability to create group messaging with several friends and among them simultaneously. Although an app called “TextPlus” developed by Gogii Inc. available for iPhones will give you such an opportunity. Even those owners of iPod touch can take advantage of this app. Besides it’s available for free on the iTunes and will allow you to send and receive texts from your friends all for free.
You can use TextPlus to text through WI-FI, 3G and Edge. Although your friends can join your conversation any time even if they don’t have this app on their phone.
You can edit your avatar on the TextPlus by adding any image on your iPhone.
The application is available at the App Store.

Sportacular a sports journal in your iPhone

2010-02-02T07:15:00.003-08:00

For those who are real sports addicts this iPhone application is really what they can use quite frequently. This app called Sportacular 1.4 can always keep you in course of all events concerning your favorite team and not only.
Though you will not have an opportunity to see video highlights, but you will be able to find scores, stats and headlines to give you a clear picture what’s going on in the world of sports. You can also search the right information by the color coding that the app uses – green for live games, red for postponements, blue for completed ones and grey for games still to be played. You can also find the winning team’s name there including all major American sports leagues, even college football and basketball, and European soccer. Tap the icon at top left to switch sports. The Scores screen shows the latest, tap back and forth through dates to see more scores or schedules, or tap a matchup to see the details.

Sportacular is the most comprehensive sports app available for free at the App Stores to keep you always updates in the sports world.

Become a DJ in seconds with MixMeister app

2010-02-02T07:15:00.001-08:00

If you have a musical passion and often tend to create your own music or edit some other melody especially that of electronic style, this app will undoubtedly win your heart. MixMeister scratch app for iPhone 3G and phone and iPod touch allows you to scratch any music you’d like from your iTunes library.
Certainly you won’t become a great mix master but this app will help you to look cool while hanging around with your friends.
You’ll have a possibility to use ten different loops sound effects and tones for scratching any melody from your iTunes music library just for free. Before starting to scratch your favorite melody you must choose the appropriate sample that features looped hip-hop beats, turntable scratches, and tonal sound effects. On the virtual turntable that is located on the apps main screen you will find a scratchable area along with a timer and a volume control. You will be able to adjust the volume of the music in real time but the app won’t allow you to change the sample’s speed.
The app is really cool for starting your scratching experiments and it’s available for free at the iPhone App Store.

Featured iPhone Lockscreen: Swank Lock by fosho4 [iPhone Themes]

2010-02-02T07:14:00.005-08:00

I’ve got a post coming up about how many stinking hours I’ve spent resetting my iPhone and reclaiming over 1GB of lost space, but here’s one of the interesting little bits I’ve found along the way. I’ve been looking at some new Winterboard-based designs over at MacThemes, and this one looks pretty interesting. The iPhone font and colour reminds me a lot of T-Mobile for some reason. I won’t be keeping this for too long because the clock text is a little tough to read, but it does make a great wallpaper…

The link the Swank Lock forum thread (where you can then DL it) is here.

Recommended: Trends in iPhone Cases at Gear Diary

2010-02-02T07:14:00.003-08:00

Larry Greenberg, one of my favorite writers /editors over at Gear Diary, appears to be a man who’s never met an iPhone case he didn’t like. It feels to me as if he has looked at and reviewed more cases than I’ve had hot meals in my life.

When it comes to knowledge, insight and passion about iPhone cases, I can’t think of anyone who brings more to the table than Larry. He’s currently got a great post up that runs down what is trending in the iPhone cases market. I’m interested in cases, but don’t keep up with them as much I’d like. Larry’s post is a great roundup of which trends are gaining momentum, from customization and hybrid cases through to some very interesting power-providing cases and mats.

If you’re on the lookout for a new iPhone case, or just another one to add to your collection or to fill a specific need (like extra power when traveling), then you should read through Larry’s post whenever you have a chance:

http://www.geardiary.com/2010/01/28/case-cast-2010-trends-in-iphone-cases/

Extend your iPhone home screen limit without jailbreaking [iPhone Tips and Tricks]

2010-02-02T07:14:00.001-08:00

Apple iPhone School posted a quick non-jailbreak tip for extending the iPhone’s home screen limit. By default, you can only have 11 home screens, but if you completely fill up your first and last home screens and leave Voice Memos as the very last icon, you can push your iPhone past that Apple-imposed limit. Once the Voice Memos app is in last place on the last page, simply move one icon up from the dock so that Voice Memos gets “bumped” to the next page. Then all you have to do is press Home to save the change, and then turn your iPhone off. When you reboot, you’ll have yourself a new home screen page on your Springboard.

I won’t need this trick any time soon, but it’s good to know it’s out there and working on the latest firmware (3.1.2).

Quick Look: RandomPlay, an iPhone Visual Playlists App [iPhone Apps]

2010-02-02T07:13:00.004-08:00

RandomPlay is a new iPhone app from Chilli X that offers to create ‘unique interactive visual playlists on your iPhone or iPod Touch’.

It’s quite a basic app, but is quite good at what it does, and easy to use.

Here are some of RandomPlay’s key features and abilities:

Play/Pause
Just tap the cover of the song that’s playing to pause it or tap another cover to play that track instead.
Delete tracks
Double tap any song you don’t want to hear and it will be replaced by another.
Song info
The artist and song title of the currently playing track are displayed at the bottom of the screen. If you’re not sure exactly what songs are queued up to be played, you can tap and hold any cover to pop up a window displaying the info for that track.
Shake to Shuffle
If you don’t like the look of any of the tracks RandomPlay has chosen, just shake the device to replace all 12 with another random selection.
RandomPlay likes to look good, so will only choose tracks with cover artwork, and because we think it works best with music, RandomPlay will also try to filter out your podcasts and audiobooks.

As soon as you launch the app, it starts playing a song and shows you album art for the 12 randomly selected songs from your music library in its current playlist, including the one it’s now playing.

Controlling what gets played is easy – just tap on a playing song to pause or restart it, double tap on any track’s album art to remove it from the current playlist, or just shake the iPhone to get a brand new set of 12 songs.

When one 12-song playlist finishes, another automatically starts up, so you don’t have to babysit it if you’re happy with just random selections – and of course you can jump in at any point to get rid of songs you’re not in the mood for.

I can’t see using the app in place of favorite playlists I’ve put together, but I do think I’ll get good use out of it when I’m in the mood for just a random shuffle, but with a little more ability to dive in and modify some of what gets thrown at me.

RandomPlay is available in the iPhone App Store now, priced at $0.99.

Redsn0w 0.9.2 Jailbreak for iPhone Is Out of Beta, Final Version Available for Download

2010-02-02T07:13:00.003-08:00

What is it?

A cross-platform jailbreaking, unlocking, and customizing tool for iPhones and iPod touches. Customizations include boot logos, recovery logos, and “verbose” boot. It’s a standalone program that doesn’t use iTunes (no custom IPSWs are involved).

The iPhone Dev Team has taken the beta tag off its redsn0w 0.9.2 and has a final release version available for download now.

As you can see form the quote above, this is their standalone jailbreak process with no custom firmwares involved, so it is more similar to a blackra1n type jailbreak than a Pwnage Tool effort.

Here’s a little detail on which devices and firmware versions are supported by this release:

What devices, platforms, and FW versions are supported?
This release supports:
All iPhones and iPod touches (still a tethered-only JB for late-model devices though)
Apple firmware 3.0 and 3.1.2
Windows and Mac OSX (x86)
It will also soon run on the PPC OSX, and Linux platforms.
If you need a carrier unlock, redsn0w will handle iPhone 2G by itself (by installing our BootNeuter utility). For the 3G and 3GS, use Cydia after you’re jailbroken to install ultrasn0w (baseband 04.26, preferred) or blacksn0w (baseband 05.11).

For all the details, and download links for Mac and Windows, go here:

http://wikee.iphwn.org/howto:rs9

Weekend iPhone Spring[board] Cleaning [iPhone Jailbreak]

2010-02-02T07:13:00.001-08:00

It’s a little early for spring cleaning but, hey, I was running out of space. I did a hard reset over the weekend and completely wiped out all of my previous settings and all of the local data because I was convinced that something had gone wrong during on of my iTunes syncs. The “other” data was up to 724 MB and my Apps had ballooned to 1.74 GB. I tried to do some basic addition with a calculator based on the numbers that iTunes was giving me, and I should really have had only 800 MB worth of app data on my device (and that was including the 100MB from my local Evernote notebook storage). Something was wrong, and so, in true Canadian fashion, I used a nuclear warhead on my device and started from scratch.
My shiny new ideal this time around was to craft a more “minimal” iPhone experience. I’ve been reading too much Minimal Mac, and I’ve also taken a lot from the experience I’ve had on my MacBook Pro. I like to keep the menu bar and dock as empty as possible on my Mac, and I was trying to apply that same idea to my iPhone setup. Was trying. I’m not trying that hard any more, and it’s only been two days since I reset.
As it turns out, there are far too many jailbreak comforts that I’ve come to love. The Winterboard theme “Tenuitas” adds a fantastic look to the lockscreen and makes it “tap to unlock” instead of the irritating “slide to unlock”. Pro Switcher is also a real godsend for when I review apps, since I can quickly and easily alt-tab out to Simplenote or Evernote, add a few quick remarks, and then switch back to the app I’m actively reviewing. There are really far too many intertwined thoughts in my head right now for me to write very clearly about what kind of setup I’ll settle on, but I can talk about a few solid things I’ve learned from this weekend.

Preserving App Store app data
I thought I was being clever by finding the iPhone /User/Applications folder via SSH and copying the folders of select apps that held their data locally. I copied Minigore (my scores!), Momento(my moments!), and MoneyBook (cha ching!) in the hopes of pasting the data right back onto the iPhone when everything was set up again. I wasn’t using the iTunes backup because it would just add the clutter (1.7GB apps and 700MB of “Other” data) I was trying to get rid of, so copying a few app folders was the only way I figured I could preserve my settings and data. It didn’t turn out quite like I had hoped.
Minigore’s data seems to have transferred perfectly. The game knows that I paid an extra $0.99 to unlock Gangster Gore, and it even has my kill count updated correctly. MoneyBook also seemed to work, but I ended up deleting the data and starting from scratch for fear that it would end up like Momento. Momento seemed to work, and it displayed my data perfectly, but whenever I tried to add a new moment, the app would simply crash. Reboots and resprings did nothing – my journal was essentially slamming shut on my fingers every time I tried to turn the page and add something new. Long story short: simply copying and pasting app data from the relevant folders on your iPhone is not a fool-proof way of preserving your data. Sticking with Cloudy or Partly Cloudy apps like Evernote seems like the best solution to guard against data loss on your device. All you need is a valid login and all of your info comes streaming back.

Winterboard theme stuck on your icons? Nuke the icon cache!
One of the first decisions I made for this iPhone setup was that I would forego the use of Winterboard icon themes. I can get a little too obsessed with those pretty little .png’s – especially when confronted with the horror of certain App Store icons (PushGmail, Stanza).
This time around the icon cache made the decision for me, though. At one point during setup I had accidentally activated an icon theme and skinned most of the icons on my home screen. I say “most” because the theme didn’t have .png’s for all of my apps, and suddenly my Springboard was home two groups of rectangles: the gorgeous skinned apps, and the gigantic, awkward looking default apps.
That’s easy, I thought: I’ll just turn the theme off and keep things nice and simple. I don’t like the default Springboard look, but at least I don’t have to work to keep it looking uniform. However, in this instance, nothing I did would clear the theme from my system. Most apps went back to normal, but a few of my essential apps stayed small and very good looking. I tried resetting, respringing, and even re-applying the theme, unapplying it, and then deleting it. After much gnashing of teeth I decided to google the problem and found the solution over on theiPod Touch Fans forum: all I had to do was clear the icon cache by deleting the com.apple.springboard-iconcache-icons file in /User/Library/Caches/. After that it was just a matter of respringing and breathing a sigh of relief.

Cydia sucks, Rock rocks
In a totally unsurprising turn of events, Cydia is now even worse than it was before. Once again I would like to say that I appreciate the work that Saurik has done to get the place up, but I would also like to scream and rip my hair out over how ridiculously slow the app has become. It now consistently takes over a minute to even load the thing up over wi-fi, and the only reason I ever go in there now is for the initial purchase of an application in the Cydia store. For everything else Jailbreak-related, I use Rock Your Phone. I’ve stated in previous posts that I think that Rock is much faster, simpler, and better than Cydia in almost every way, but it’s gotten even better with the latest update. Rock can now detect Cydia store licenses for my device, so once I’ve bought something on Cydia, I can always re-download or update it through Rock. What’s more – the app takes mere seconds to load up. It’s even faster than the App Store sometimes.

Free Space
As of the writing of this piece, I have 1.8GB of free space simply ripe for media and apps. I can fit several TV episodes or a couple of movies onto the iPhone without having to plan for it, and that’s just so geekily delicious it makes me smile. All in all I’m happy with the new state of my device, but maybe I’m just trying to console myself for all the hours that this weekend lost to miniscule details like app settings and my home screen setup. In fact, I’m going to stop thinking about this altogether before I start feeling terribly guilty about it all.

Activator: a free and extremely powerful jailbreak app launcher for iPhone [Jailbreak Apps]

2010-02-02T07:12:00.004-08:00

The power of Ryan Petrich’s Activator (free on Cydia) dawned on me only this weekend. Activator is used in the excellent Overboard and ProSwitcher apps to launch them with gestures, status bar taps, and hardware button presses. I had heard that these options should soon be applicable to BigBoss’s SBSettings panel, but that hasn’t happened yet.

What has happened, though, is even better: you can now choose to launch any of your installed applications using any of the gestures and actions that Activator supports. There are also a number of system shortcuts (respring, reset, turn off, lock, etc.) that you can control as well. You can set these actions to perform any time you use a gesture or command, or you can set them only to occur on the Springboard, or while within an application.
There are lots of ways to customize Activator to launch apps or system actions:
Home Button, Sleep Button, Status Bar – double tap, short hold
Motion – shake and bake
Slide in Gesture (from the bottom of the screen) – bottom-left, bottom, bottom-right
Volume Buttons – display tap, down and then up, up and then down

The system actions available within Activator are:
Home button press
Power down
Reboot
Respring
Safe Mode
Sleep Button
Spotlight

It’s easy to get a little too Gung-ho with Activator when you first realize how powerful it is. I had set up all three Slide in Gestures at first, but I found myself accidentally activating things when all I meant to do was simply type on the iPhone keyboard. My favourite launching gestures are still the slide-in, home button hold, and volume button display tap. The first two are pretty self explanatory, but the display tap can sound a little confusing at first. It involves pressing either of the volume buttons and then tapping on the volume pop-up on screen. My favourite jailbreak SMS app, iRealQuickSMS, used this same function to launch, and I’m now using display tap to activate my Contacts app.

The rest of my controls are pretty simple: a short hold of the home button to activate Overboard, a swipe from the bottom to activate ProSwitcher, and a swipe on the bottom-right to activate Simplenote. How about you folks? How have you tricked out your Activator settings?

Great Line from Stephen Fry on iPhone’s Impact on the Entire Mobile Market

2010-02-02T07:12:00.003-08:00

Stephen Fry – the comedian, actor, novelist, Guardian Technology columnist, blogger, cricket fan, and all-around fantastically brilliant person – has a great blog post with his initial thoughts on the iPad. I love this line early on in the post about the impact of the iPhone in the mobile arena:

Even if it had proved a commercial and business disaster instead of an astounding success, iPhone would remain the most significant release of its generation because of its effect on the smartphone habitat. Does anybody seriously believe that Android, Nokia, Samsung, Palm, BlackBerry and a dozen others would since have produced the product line they have without the 100,000 volt taser shot up the jacksie that the iPhone delivered to the entire market?

So true. You can check out his full post on the iPad, which is of course superbly well written and contains his first-hand impressions of the new device, here:

http://www.stephenfry.com/2010/01/28/ipad-about/

RedSn0w 0.9: iPhone 3.1.2 Jailbreak Available

2010-02-02T07:12:00.001-08:00

RedSn0w 0.9 is officially out of beta and is now available to everyone who wants to jailbreak iPhone 3.1.2. RedSn0w had been in beta testing for a couple of weeks now and the Dev Teamworked on fixing the bugs. Apparently, this release is now completely bulletproof.

This release of RedSn0w supports all iPhone and iPod Touch models (still a tethered-only JB for late-model devices though) and runs fine on Windows and Mac OSX.

At first, this version of RedSn0w was supposed to include the IPCC tethering hack but it seems it was causing issues so it was removed at the last minute.

I was a little confused about the baseband situation so I asked MuscleNerd directly. Here is what he has to say:

redsn0w itself doesn’t update the firmware, or the baseband. It just works with whatever firmware is there and ignores the baseband. redsn0w happens to know about both 3.0 and 3.1.2 firmwares, so it can jailbreak (or add logos, etc) to either.
ultrasn0w right now is only for baseband 04.26. If you have baseband 04.26 on 3.0 (which you normally would at that FW version), then that works fine for ultrasn0w. If you have baseband 04.26 on 3.1.2 (you got there through a custom IPSW), then that works fine for ultrasn0w too. And in both cases, redsn0w can be used to jailbreak, get Cydia, and install ultrasn0w.
However if you somehow have baseband 05.11 on firmware 3.0 (you went up to 3.1.2 then tried to come back down), ultrasn0w won’t do the unlock, even though redsn0w will work fine. And if you have baseband 05.11 on firmware 3.1.2 (you did a stock apple restore/update), then ultrasn0w won’t work there either.

I recently wrote a tutorial on how to use RedSn0w to jailbreak iPhone 3.1.2. Check it out if you want to jailbreak your iPhone using RedSn0w, which you can get from our iPhone downloadspage.

ContactFlow Brings Coverflow to Your Contacts

2010-02-02T07:11:00.004-08:00

Those of you who have a jailbroken iPhone will probably rememberContactFlow [iTunes Link], the jailbreak app that brought coverflow-style management to your contacts. Turns out that the dev decided to go legit and removed ContactFlow from Cydia to submit it to the App Store.

When you launch ContactFlow, you have access to all your contacts. Just tap on a contact to flip the picture and display associated numbers and e-mails. By selecting a number, ContactFlow will simply call your contact. The SMS icon automatically send you to the SMSapplication. By the same way, in ContactFlow, selecting an e-mail will send you where you can write a new e-mail.

ContactFlow is available from the App Store for free for a limited time, so get it while you can. In the meantime, have a look at this video demo to see ContactFlow in action.

RedSn0w 0.9.3 Jailbreak Enables Tethering of iPhone 3.1.2

2010-02-02T07:11:00.003-08:00

RedSn0w has been very hot for the last few days. After releasing the beta version and testing it out for a while, the Dev Team officially released RedSn0w 0.9, which didn’t contain theIPCC tethering hack that would allow tethering on iPhone OS 3.1.2.

It has now been fixed as the Dev Team updated RedSn0w to 0.9.3, which now includes the IPCC tethering hack. For those of you who have no idea what “IPCC tethering hack” means, here is more information:

It allows you to install cellphone Carrier Bundles that aren’t officially signed by Apple. This lets you, for instance, install a Carrier Bundle that allows you to use your iPhone as a way to connect your PC to the internet (through your 3G cell connection). This hack is always installed on 3G and 3GS phones by redsn0w 0.9.3 (no selection is required). It isn’t included at all in 0.9.2 (it’s still in a trial phase). Note that carriers may not like you tethering behind their back so you do so at your own risk.

So by jailbreaking your iPhone using RedSn0w 0.9.3, you will automatically get the base for iPhone tethering, but you will still have to download the right MobileConfigs file fromhttp://www.benm.at/help/help.php and install it, directly from your iPhone.

Note that this website has saved my butt many many times when traveling overseas. As a matter of fact, http://www.benm.at/help/help.php saved my butt just hours ago. I am currently in Thailand and the mobile carrier I am using doesn’t allow tethering. I quickly visited BenM.at and downloaded the right MobileConfigs file, which allows me to write this article you are currently reading by tethering my iPhone (aka using my iPhone as a modem).

To get the tethering hack, you will have to jailbreak your iPhone using RedSn0w 0.9.3. It is available for download from here and here is my RedSn0w tutorial. For the latest information about RedSn0w, please check out this page.

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Apple iPad Promotional Material Updated to Remove Flash Content, Adobe iPa

2010-02-02T07:11:00.001-08:00

And 9to5mac finally puts to bed the does-iPad-support-Flash flood they kicked off yesterday by noting Apple and their advertising agency have updated promotional videos and images on Apple.com to properly reflect the lack of Adobe Flash support on the iPad, including the blue lego bricks of plugin fail we iPhone users are so used to.

As we were told by our source at the secretive organization, Apple came crashing down on them with urgent requests to change the video.

In other no-Flash-on-the-iPad news, TheFlashBlog has removed the lone porn fail image from their condemnation graphic, while Merlin Mann at Kung Fu Grippe[via Daring Fireball] points out that if the graphic had been in Flash rather than a JPG, no iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch owner would have seen it anyway… (Or would they, as Gruber updates to pass on that the site in question has an iPhone version that replaces the Flash with QuickTime. D’oh!)

Thus ends the latest flare up in the never ending Flash on iPhone OS saga. Right?

iPhone 3.2 SDK on iPad — iChat Video Calling, File Downloads, Telephony Support, Handwriting Keyboard… And Coming to iPhone?

2010-02-02T07:10:00.006-08:00

Engadget has been getting tips from deep code divers who are exploring Apple’s latest iPhone 3.2 SDK for the iPad and what they’re finding includes code/hooks for iChat-style video Calling, file downloads from Mobile Safari, support for telephony like SMS and calls, and some prototype support for a “handwriting keyboard”. The video conferencing news is especially intriguing:

We’re told that there are hooks to accept and decline a video conference, flip a video feed (which suggests a front-facing camera) and — most importantly — run the video call in either full screen mode or in just a portion of the screen. That means you’ll be able to chat and do other things at the same time, which could mean there’s at least some type of multitasking going on here.

Could this be another example of the iPad being “unfinished“, or of Apple removing a camera at the last minute — like the iPod touch G3 — because they couldn’t get an implementation that was good enough in time for the big reveal?

Looks like there’s some good news (or good speculation at least) for iPhone owners as well, since the devices all share the same OS code base:

chpwn also tells us [...] both the new landscape orientation for the homescreen and keyboard support appear to be destined for the iPhone itself when 3.2 comes out.

How-to: Make Your Jailbroken iPhone Look Like an iPad

2010-02-02T07:10:00.005-08:00

Redmond Pie has a nifty tutorial up for those who want to give their Jailbroken iPhone and/or iPod touch an iPad look-and-feel (or just a hint of iPhone 3.2!). Here’s what you need:

Winterboard
“Simple iPad Theme”
MakeItMine app
Shrink app
ProSwitcher
NYTimes app
Classics app
Kindle app

Making your old device look like an unreleased new device is hallmark of the hacking community (hey, I had the marimba ringtone and iPhone theme on my Treo 680 for months!), so if you want to get your iPad on, check out Redmond Pie and the video after the break!

CEOh-Snap: Steve Jobs Says Adobe Lazy, Flash Buggy, Google Wants to Kill iPhone, Not “Not Evil”, Next iPhone A+ Update?

2010-02-02T07:10:00.003-08:00

According to an anonymous source in attendance at Apple’s recent, internal iPad town hall meeting at the Cupertino campus, Steve Jobs answered some employee questions by saying “Adobe is lazy” and that Google’s “don’t be evil” motto was “BS”. Wired reports:

On Google: We did not enter the search business, Jobs said. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them, he says. Someone else asks something on a different topic, but there’s no getting Jobs off this rant. I want to go back to that other question first and say one more thing, he says. This don’t be evil mantra: “It’s bullshit.” Audience roars.
About Adobe: They are lazy, Jobs says. They have all this potential to do interesting things but they just refuse to do it. They don’t do anything with the approaches that Apple is taking, like Carbon. Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy, he says. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash, he says. The world is moving to HTML5.

Wired points out that, by getting around the App Store pocket veto and delivering Google Voice for iPhone via an HTML5 web app, Jobs should be careful what he wishes for. Google maps data and YouTube were shown off during the iPad launch, as was PDF support, though no Flash (despite some ad-related confusion).

More than a battle of words, however, this is a battle for control of the consumer internet experience — and the tremendous revenue that comes with it.

MacRumors brings a few more details on that:

Apple’s next iPhone is an “A+” update, and Android won’t be able to keep up with Apple’s aggressive pace.
iPad, iPhone, and Mac are the most important products Jobs has been a part of.
Lala was a talent acquisition to bring their people into iTunes.
2010 Macs will take Apple to the “next level”
Blu-Ray is still a bag of hurt, so Apple is still waiting on it.

An “A+” update for the 4th generation iPhone, eh? Bring it on!

Forget Flash, iPhone, iPad Don’t Support ActiveX!

2010-02-02T07:10:00.001-08:00

I’ve mentioned a couple times already, given the recent flare-up in the discussion about iPad and iPhone not supporting Flash, that not so long ago you had a hard time using any browser other than IE6 because of another proprietary plugin — Microsoft’s ActiveX. Times change, though, and these days Firefox, Safari, and Chrome users seldom if ever come across the big red X. It’s possible Flash and its blue lego block will soon be likewise optional on major sites.

Scobleizer draws the same analogy:

Let’s go back a few years to when Firefox was just coming on the scene. Remember that? I remember that it didn’t work with a ton of websites. Things like banks, e-commerce sites, and others. Why not? Because those sites were coded specifically for the dominant Internet Explorer back then.
Some people thought Firefox was going to fail because of these broken links. Just like Adobe is trying to say that Apple’s iPad is going to fail because of its own set of broken links.
But just a few years later and have you seen a site that doesn’t work on Firefox? I haven’t.
What happened? Firefox FORCED developers to get on board with the standards-based web.
The same thing is happening now, based on my talks with developers: they are not including Flash in their future web plans any longer.

I work in web development and just did a major site redesign for an international company. It went from a lot of Flash, to no Flash. Why? Marketing wanted a site that would be more easily viewed on BlackBerrys and iPhones.

Daring Fireball drives this home:

Flash is no longer ubiquitous. There’s a big difference between “everywhere” and “almost everywhere”. Adobe’s own statistics on Flash’s market penetration claim 99 percent penetration as of last month. That’s because, according to their survey methodology, they’re only counting “PCs” — which ignores the entire sort of devices which have brought about this debate. Adobe is arguing that Flash is installed on 99 percent of all web browsers that support Flash, not 99 percent of all web browsers.
Used to be you could argue that Flash, whatever its merits, delivered content to the entire audience you cared about. That’s no longer true, and Adobe’s Flash penetration is shrinking with each iPhone OS device Apple sells.

CEOh-Snap iPad Attack Edition — Google, Nokia, Microsoft, and Nintendo on Apple’s Tablet

2010-02-02T07:09:00.004-08:00

Prior to Steve Jobs laying into Google and Adobe, Google, Nokia, Microsoft, and Nintendo got their shots in on Apple and the iPad, and here’s what they had to say:

Google CEO Eric Schmidt: “You might want to tell me the difference between a large phone and a tablet.” [via Business Insider]

Someone might want to tell him people are making Android tablets, or is he still using BlackBerry?

Nokia social point-main Mark Squires: In a post titled, “A fruit confused”, he takes issue with Apple calling itself the world’s largest mobile devices business (measured by revenue). [via Nokia Conversations]

Fair enough, considering there are lies, damn lies, and statistics, but the title of the post… really?

Microsoft director of product management in the developer platform, Brandon Watson: “developers of applications for the iPhone OS–which the iPad uses–are not making money. Developing applications for the iPhone and iPad is expensive, he said, because iPhone OS uses the Objective C language rather than Microsoft’s more pervasive .NET platform. And Apple’s control over the platform has alienated some people that make software for its products, he said.” [via Technologizer]

Cue Windows Mobile millionaire dev and their 140,000 runtimes in 5… 4… 3… 2…

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata: ‘It was a bigger iPod Touch. I question whether those features would be enough to get people to buy new machines.” [via NYT]

Never mind his own company just released a bigger version of their own, theNintendo DSi LL… He’s missing the same point many others are likewise missing. The iPad isn’t just a big iPod touch. The iPad is a big iPod touch. That’s its killer feature.

And yes, we’ll be saving all these comments, and any others we come across, and looking back at them one year post-iPad launch to see if it works out any better for the competition than it did when the iPhone was mocked in 2007…

[Thanks to everyone who sent these in!]

Will Apple’s iPad Get Jailbreak and How Long Will it Take?

2010-02-02T07:09:00.003-08:00

When Apple announced the iPad last week, TiPb’s email quickly filled up with readers and forum members who wondered if it would be possible to jailbreak it and, if so, how long it would take? First, it’s important to remember that, while we’re all excited, the iPad doesn’t even ship until March at the earliest, so it is pure speculation at this point. We do hope the likes of the iPhone Dev-Team and/or Geohot will try their hardest to get it accomplished and that it will only be a matter of time.

The good news is, unlike the iPhone, Apple is selling the iPad 3G carrier-unlocked, so there’ll be no need for redsn0w or blacksn0w. Just pop in a Micro-SIM and you can use it on any network you want.

The bad news is, Apple has really stepped up to the plate when it comes to combating the jailbreak. With their new iPhone Platform Security Manager and hardware changes and the patching of software exploits like the 24kpwn, which no longer works on the latest iPhone 3GS and iPod touch G3 models, there is no doubt in our minds it will take a good while.

So, to anyone looking to pick up a iPad and jailbreak it when it is released, we hope you have a good amount of patience.

We’d also like to know — presuming the iPad is jailbroken, which Jailbreak Appsdo you most want to see ported over?

UPDATED: Apple Store Down — No iPad Pre-Orders, Could be Nothing…

2010-02-02T07:09:00.001-08:00

UDPATE: Nothing. Behind-the-scenes maintenance or prep-work for some later update. Seriously. Can’t find a difference…

ORIGINAL: Yes, the Apple Store is down. We have no idea if this is for iPad pre-order setup, for some other product update/refresh, or for behind-the-scenes maintenance.

If you have any ideas, let us know in the comments and we’ll update as soon as it’s back!

[Thanks to Andy for the tip!]

Macmillan Books to Return to Amazon, Prices to Rise to iPad iBooks Level, Consumers to Vote with their Wallets

2010-02-02T07:07:00.005-08:00

Both Mcmillan and Amazon have issued statements about the story linked to previously, wherein they stopped selling Macmillan e-books after the publisher wanted to raise the price for best-sellers to an agency model $12.99 to $14.99 — which Apple had already agreed to for iBooks on the iPad.

Mcmillan’s CEO, John Sargent’s comments ran as a paid advertisement in the Sunday edition of PublishersLunch and read in part:

Under the agency model, we will sell the digital editions of our books to consumers through our retailers. Our retailers will act as our agents and will take a 30% commission (the standard split today for many digital media businesses). The price will be set the price for each book individually. Our plan is to price the digital edition of most adult trade books in a price range from $14.99 to $5.99. At first release, concurrent with a hardcover, most titles will be priced between $14.99 and $12.99. E books will almost always appear day on date with the physical edition. Pricing will be dynamic over time.
The agency model would allow Amazon to make more money selling our books, not less. We would make less money in our dealings with Amazon under the new model. Our disagreement is not about short-term profitability but rather about the long-term viability and stability of the digital book market.

Amazon’s response can be found in full on Engadget, but contains:

We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan’s terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books. Amazon customers will at that point decide for themselves whether they believe it’s reasonable to pay $14.99 for a bestselling e-book. We don’t believe that all of the major publishers will take the same route as Macmillan. And we know for sure that many independent presses and self-published authors will see this as an opportunity to provide attractively priced e-books as an alternative.

So what do you think? Will the publishers be able to raise prices or will the market — or lack thereof for higher priced e-books — force them back down again?

Steven Colbert Shows off iPad at the Grammy Awards!

2010-02-02T07:07:00.003-08:00

Our caption: Steven Colbert is iPad at the Grammy Awards and so can’t you. What’s yours?

Engadget has the video up. Enjoy!

RedSn0w 0.9 for Mac and Windows Officially Released by iPhone Dev-Team

2010-02-02T07:07:00.001-08:00

iPhone Dev-Team member, MuscleNerd has announced that redsn0w 0.9 is officially out of beta and is now available in both Mac and Windows flavors.

“redsn0w 0.9beta3 results were good, may as well take it out of beta: http://is.gd/7ppQO (new: ipt3G and IPCC tethering)”

This version of redsn0w supports all iPhone and iPod touches running the 3.0 and 3.1.2 firmware. If you need to perform a carrier unlock on your iPhone 2G, redsn0w can do that for you but for the 3G and 3GS you must use Cydia to install blacks0w for baseband 04.26 and ultrasn0w for baseband 05.11. And yes, for late model 3GS devices you are still limited to a tethered jailbreak.

For the full details and download links be sure to check out the official redsn0w 0.9 wikee.

Apple iPad and iPhone 3.2 Preview

2010-02-02T07:06:00.000-08:00

Apple’s new iPad tablet is essentially a larger form-factor iPhone 3GS or iPod touch G3 which leverages both the bigger, 1024×768 screen and an updated iPhone 3.2 OS with enhanced versions of existing apps like Mail and Calendar, new offerings like the iBooks e-book reader and store, low-cost 3G data plans, and a 1GHz Apple A4 processor.

Critics have called the iPad “just a big iPhone” and fail to see how it changes anything. Supporters have called the iPad “a big iPhone” and feel it changes everything. Which is it? Until it ships in March (for the Wi-Fi version) or April (for the 3G version) and TiPb gets to do a full-on review, we can’t say for sure. But we can go through and preview what we’ve seen so far and try to figure out just which direction Apple’s leaning. And we’re going to, after the break!

What is the iPad and Where Does it Fit?

At their “Come see our latest creation” keynote (available now via Apple.com and iTunes), Apple CEO, Steve Jobs announced the iPad as a new category of device in-between the smartphone and a laptop. That’s not to say in-between devices didn’t exist before, they certainly did — netbooks, tablet PCs, large media devices, etc. have all tried to be that device and most have failed. Just as there were MP3 players before the iPod, however, Apple aims to mainstream the concept and possibly create if not a new category position, then a new contender to be that category.

Sure, the iPad could be just a large slab of glass too big for the pocket and too underpowered for productivity. Or it could be a highly abstracted computing appliance with an incredibly intimate, easy-to-use interface. It could fail to catch on, like others before it, or it could conceivably mainstream computers the way the iPhone mainstreamed smartphones. Geeks might enjoy using it on the sofa or while traveling. Non geeks might enjoy finally having a way to browse the web, handle email and appointments, consume music, movies, TV shows, and e-books, and use apps and games without the massive overhead involved in managing even a modern Windows, Mac, or Linus-based machine.

Significantly Better

In order to introduce the iPad, Steve Jobs said it had to be significantly better at a few key things than either a smartphone or a laptop. His list included:

Browsing
Email
Photos
Video
Music
Games
eBooks

The ability to hold all that in your hands and interact with it through a fast, fluid multitouch interface was Jobs’ pitch — so much more intimate than a laptop and so much more capable than a smartphone. But for whom?

Horizontals and Verticals

Again, geeks often buy just to have the latest gadget, but for non-geeks, an iPad might be preferable to a file-system bound PCs that require tons of tech-support from manufacturers or tech-savvy family members. No anti-virus or anti-malware, no hunting down and installing software and only partially uninstalling it later, no drivers to be driven mad by, and runtimes to rundown the system.

TiPb and many others have joked that this could be the perfect machine for our mom, but that just means it could be perfect for anyone who finds current computers impenetrable and hostile. That includes grandparents who just want to see photos and movies of the grandkids and email them back and forth. It also includes those young grandkids who, if the iPhone is any indicator, can take to the user interface like fish to water.

The lack of an iSight webcam does hamper this, however, as many grandparents actually want to see their grandkids (apply that equally to any friends or family).

For verticals, it could also be a boon to medical professionals, teachers and students, technicians, business users, or anyone who needs an easy-to-use interface that’s highly customizable via apps, and incredibly low maintenance. Whether that’s to review x-rays, carry around tons of interactive textbooks, follow detailed schematics, or use rich data visualization models, the iPad could be a better, more specific solution while on rounds, in class, at a customer, or on the road.

A Bit of History

Before we begin to look at where we are today, it’s interesting to once again note that the iPhone we’ve had since 2007 was an adaption of older, existing Apple tablet efforts. The iPad (or Safari Pad) started life before the iPhone but ended up being released later. Much of the technology in the iPhone and iPod touch comes from work on the iPad, Apple just felt they could productize the smartphone and iPod version earlier, and that the iPad just wasn’t ready yet.

Today, Apple thinks it is.

iPad Hardware

If the original iPhone 2G (and the iPod touch G1 that followed it) established Apple’s take on the iconic black slab, the iPad establishes the black slate. Like the original iPhone and like all generations of iPod touch, it’s backed by an aluminum unibody — and the 3G-enabled version even has a similar black plastic, antenna friendly, cutout. And like all versions of iPhone, the front is a single piece of glass wrapped in a silvered bezel.

Size Matters

If we examine the size, the iPad is 9.56″ high compared to 4.5″ for the iPhone and 4.3 for the iPod touch. Width is 7.47″ compared to 2.4″ for both the iPhone and iPod touch. Depth is 0.5″ for the iPad compared to 0.48″ for the iPhone and 0.33″ thin for the iPod touch. Weight is 1.5 lbs for the iPad compared to 4.8 ounces for the iPhone and 4.05 ounces for the iPod touch.

So in terms of size, the iPad is more than twice as high and three times as wide as an iPhone, and it’s quite a lot heavier as well. It’s certainly not pocketable but it is portable. Sure it’s heavier than a Kindle but that’s a tradeoff for the aluminum and glass-covered, full-color screen.

And oh, what a screen. 9.6″ diagonal as opposed to the iPhone’s 3.5″, it’s LED and uses IPS — the same technology found in the new 9:16 iMac display. While we haven’t seen the iPad’s screen in action yet, the iMac’s is phenomenal, with an incredible range of bright, beautiful colors and ultra-wide viewing angle perfect for sharing with lots of people sitting on a couch together (if you’re familiar with older generation displays, and how the colors would seem to invert from an angle, have no worries about that here.)

It’s also oleophobic, aka oil resistant, just like the iPhone 3GS.

Where the iPhone and iPod touch which have 3:2 aspect ration screens, the iPad’s is 4:3 like an old standard definition TV. By contrast, Apple’s old iMac had a 16:10 ratio, and their new iMacs, like modern HDTVs, have 16:9 aspect ratios. Why has Apple gone in the opposite direction for the iPad?

Unlike a TV, where you sit across the room and the screen fills a relatively small part of your field of vision, and like the iPhone, the iPad will be held much closer. Even with monstrous letterboxing, the video will still fill a large part of your field of vision.

Of course, the iPad isn’t only a video player. There are other forms of content to consume. For web browsing, even 16:10 sometimes feels too “short”, and you need to scroll more than you like. For books, a narrow page may not be ideal, and with a two-page spread, those pages will seem squat, squarish. In that context, the 4:3 ratio could be a good compromise.

Bottom line, the iPad is more to lug around than an iPhone, but if you’re used to lugging a laptop or netbook, taking an iPad with you will be a breeze. Taking it in addition to that laptop, however, might be annoying — and something Apple likely hopes you do instead of, not as well as.

Buttons, Ports, and the Usual Paucity Thereof

The iPad boasts just as many — or rather just as few — physical controls as the iPhone and iPod. There’s a home button just below the screen, an sleep/wake button on the top, and mute button and volume rocker on the side. To control anything else, Apple expects you to use that beefy multitouch display.

Ports are similar. There’s the iPod-standard 30-pin dock connector at the bottom, a 3.5mm headset jack, weirdly shaped speakers on both sides, and a microphone.

That’s right, no USB or Firewire, no HDMI. You can get video-out via VGA adapter (meant for business use with projectors) and Apple’s existing composite and component A/V cables. A new dock adapter also allows cameras and SD/SDHC camera cards to be connected so pictures and video can be loaded into the iPad. Since the iPad supported 720p video files, here’s hoping Apple ads an HDMI adapter to the list sooner rather than later.

Astonishing Accessories

Apple is providing a basic, $39 dock for the ipad, just as it does for the iPhone, as well as a $39 case that can be flipped open and around to prop up the iPad for easier typing or movie viewing. There’s also a 6-foot extension for the AC USB power adapter, and the aforementioned video cables. Nice but hardly new.

What is new — what’s astonishing given Apple’s history with the iPhone, is a second, $69 dock that’s attached to, and provides full support for, an Apple-style hardware keyboard. Yeah, we almost fell over too. And if that’s not enough, the iPad can also use Apple’s — or anyone else’s — Bluetooth keyboard as well.

This means people who might not have considered an iPad for serious text entry can now consider it, and could potentially take it on short trips instead of a netbook where they’d use just the iPad functions 80% of the time, but still need a hardware keyboard once and a while.

We hold great hope that both make their way back to the iPhone and iPod touch with all deliberate speed.

Apple A4 System-on-a-Chip

One of the biggest stories coming out of the iPad launch was Apple introducing their own system-on-a-chip, dubbed the Apple A4. Other than the announced 1GHz speed, no one will know the exact details until the iPad ships and is subsequently torn down. It’s widely suspected that Apple is using the next generation of the iPhone 3GS’ ARM Cortex A8 CPU, the ARM Cortex A9, which is multicore. Some rumors have suggested Apple is also using an ARM GPU for the graphics, though again an iPhone 3GS-like PowerVR SGX chip could also be in play. There’s been no word on RAM yet, though Apple did say the A4 had an on-board memory controller.

To be clear, Apple isn’t making their own chips (at least for now), they’re just putting the chips they want together in their own way.

Up until now, with Apple controlling software and hardware, it’s been difficult for competitors to produce as nicely integrated devices. With Apple controlling the internals as well, its only going to be harder.

Storage and Pricing

Storage and pricing go together like Apple and $100 increments. Trust us, that makes sense if you’re at all familiar with how Apple determines low, medium, and high-cost versions of their iPod and iPhone families, and now iPad as well.

For the Wi-Fi only model, you’re looking at:

$499 for 16GB
$599 for 32GB
$699 for 64GB

For the Wi-Fi + 3G model, it increases to:

$629 for 16GB
$729 for 32GB
$829 for 64GB

Those are the same storage options currently available on the much smaller iPod touch, so yes, we’re disappointed. Physically, our guess is Apple could have fit 128GB of solid-state NAND Flash memory in the iPad. Whether they could have fit 128GB without significantly raising the price-point, however, is another story. That Apple was prioritizing low price over huge specs isn’t surprising here.

And what a low price it is! After analysts and journalist either predicted or were fed a $999 price point, announcing at $499 made the iPad seem like a sweet deal, and it is given the functionality of even that 3G-less, low storage version.

Like with the iPhone, we’re betting people get lured into the Apple Store for the $499 but realize even $699 or $829 for the 64GB, 3G version isn’t that much more amortized over the course of the 12-36 month product life (gadget lovers tend to update every year, mainstream consumers only when they have to).

Cheap, No-Contract Data Plans… if You Have a Micro-SIM

For the version of the iPad that supports 3G cellular networking, unlike the iPhone — which remains locked to carriers who, in exchange, subsidize its price to the tune of $450 — is being offered unsubsidized and unlocked. You can run it on any 3G carrier that supports UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100 MHz), which included AT&T — but not T-Mobile US. It also supports GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz), however, so if you really want to run it on T-Mo (or Wind in Canada) you can do so on the much slower 2.5G.

Sounds great, but as Apple has done in the past, they’ve jettisoned current technology for next-generation. Instead of the ubiquitous 2FF Mini-SIM cards used by the iPhone (and almost all modern GSM phones), the iPad uses smaller,3FF Micro-SIM cards. Steve Jobs said, if you have one, you could stick it in the iPad and it should “just work”. Trouble is, most people don’t have a Micro-SIM yet. No doubt AT&T should by launch, and we’ve heard T-Mo, O2 in the UK, and Orange in France are getting them as well.

Speaking of which, Apple didn’t stop the low-cost train with just the iPad itself — they somehow got AT&T to agree to unprecedented data plans:

$14.99 for up to 256MB of data
$29.99 for “unlimited”

We don’t know if “unlimited” is the typical “use over 5GB’s at your own risk” but we suspect so. That they’re off-contract and unlocked, customers could get on-demand, pre-paid data for times when they’ll be traveling, anywhere in the world. What’s more, Apple said you could enable the data plans right on the device, making it super convenient — though whether or not that will be rolled-out internationally is also unclear.

We should know more by March in the US, and June/July internationally when Apple announces more network deals.

iPad Software — iPhone 3.2

The iPad doesn’t run full-on Mac OS X. If you want a highly-portable Mac, Apple offers the Intel Core2 Duo-powered MacBook Air with Nvidia graphics that runs Adobe CS 4, including Photoshop, well. In other words, you can hammer nails with a screwdriver but that’s not its intended purpose, and in Apple’s mind the iPad’s intended purpose meant the right tool for its job is iPhone OS X in general, and iPhone 3.2 in specific.

With 70 million iPhone and iPod touch devices sold to date, Apple pointed out that there’s a huge base of consumers already educated on how to use their brand of multitouch interface, something they must consider important in mainstreaming the iPad.

iPhone Inside

That’s right, the iPhone 3.2 OS that’s been missing in action for actual iPhoneand iPod touch owners have been waiting for since late 2009 has finally shown up — and so far it’s iPad only.

Now that’s not to say iPhone and iPod touch owners might not get it eventually, like in March when the iPad ships, and it does bring some interesting things to the iPad that we’d all appreciate. And, Apple being Apple, it also lacks some things that we really wish it didn’t lack.

Some of what’s lacking — and we’ll get to specifics below — might well change before launch. The iPhone added the YouTube app between introduction and shipping, for example. Also, if Apple holds true to schedule, March will bring us an iPhone 4.0 sneak preview event, which means anyone getting an iPad on release could get a free software update that adds significant functionality in June/July — just as previous iPhone and iPod touch users have enjoyed for years.

All that being said, here’s where we stand as of today.

System-wide Embiggening

Apple Senior VP of iPhone Software, Scott Forstall said that all of the built-in apps for the iPad’s version of iPhone 3.2 were re-written from the ground up. Since the screen is much bigger, that makes sense. Where on an iPhone or iPod touch you have to switch screens to get to list views like the Email inbox or album contents, or change options without having to go to a separate settings window. Primarily these are exposed through “popover” menus, especially in portrait mode, and side panels in landscape mode.

Scrubbers, seen on the iPhone 3GS for video trimming, also get bigger and pushed out across the system so you can scrub through everything from photos to calendar days.

Multitouch gestures like pinch-to-zoom are found in more apps, and from the demo of a prototype version of the game NOVA, more complex gestures are also possible — such as three-finger turns.

Lastly, the virtual keyboard is much bigger and MacBook-looking (it even includes faux ridges on the F and J keys!) that almost MacBook size in landscape mode

According to numerous hands-on reports, however, the home+sleep button combo to take a screenshot isn’t currently implemented. (Do a reviewer a favor, Apple, flip that switch and soon.)

Photos from the Lock Screen

The iPad has an almost identical lock screen to the iPhone and iPod touch with the exception of an extra button that launches photo slide shows. Essentially, when your iPad is off and especially when its charging in its dock, it can become a 9.6″ digital photo frame (with a gorgeous LED panel!)

However, if photos aren’t your thing, if you’d prefer weather, news, Facebook or Twitter status updates, or… anything else, you’re out of luck. Full screen or dashboard-like widgets, Apple doesn’t currently offer any other way to use that giant screen when locked.

Home Screen: Bring your own Wallpaper, Even in Landscape

Currently, to do something as simple as changing the plain black background of your iPhone’s Home Screen, you have to Jailbreak. Not so with the iPad, where support for custom background wallpapers, including several provided by Apple, is built right in.

While the demonstration and associated press images have shown an iPhone-live 4 icon wide grid for apps, the iPad simulator shipped as part of the iPhone 3.2 SDK (more on that later) shows up to 6 apps can fit in the dock.

What’s more, the Home Screen now rotates into landscape mode.

Calendar Goes Weekly

iPad Calendar takes visual cues from both iPhone Calendar and Mac iCal but really looks like it comes into its own, with the real-world look and feel Apple has sprinkled throughout the iPad, and all the room the big screen provides.

Along with month, day, and list view, it also gets a week-view, which the iPhone still lacks.

Contacts

iPad Contacts gets re-envisioned to look more like… well, a contact book complete faux open page design and ornamental bookmark.

Not much in the way of new functionality has been shown yet, though the SDK shows hints that either camera hooks from the iPhone were left in (and SMS and phone call handling hooks as well), or Apple has plans for future iPad devices.

Notes

iPad Notes, in landscape view, gets the side panel list so you can jump quickly from note to not without having to navigate back and forth like you do on the iPhone. In a move that might be the highlight-equivalent of the still-in-use Marker Felt font for body text, Apple helpfully circles the current note in red…

Maps, Still with Google

Like on the iPhone, Apple created an iPad Maps app that hooks into Google’s ginormous back end of location, satellite, and street-view data. The biggest change is — wow, does it look great on the bigger screen.

The “page curl” to access settings remains, and no matter how nice it looks, why this inconsistent method exists only in Maps remains a mystery.

Also, popovers make an appearance in Maps, for example when you start typing in a search, a popover appears containing suggested terms. While not expressly shown, it’s not difficult to imagine this is another system-wide addition across the built-in apps.

As an aside, it’s nice to see Google still playing a role inside the iPhone/iPad OS, despite rumors to the contrary.

Videos and that 4:3 Aspect Ratio

Rather than an iPod app like the iPhone, iPad has a separate Videos app like the iPod touch. Due to the bigger screen real-estate, however, instead of a vertical list, poster art is shown in an iTunes-style grid. After choosing a movie, TV show, podcast, or music video, you’re greeted with large poster art, synopsis, and cast and crew highlights.

There’s also a large, thumbnailed chapter view for titles that support it.

And as mentioned, due to the 4:3 aspect ratio, when videos are playing you get some monstrous letterboxing…

YouTube, Now in HD

The YouTube app for iPad pulls in the H.264 version of Google’s popular video site and supports high-definition now as well (though what resolution that means, we’re not sure yet).

Unlike the iPhone, where you can only see full-screen video, or video information or related videos on separate screens, on the iPad you can see a partial screen video with all that information displayed at the same time.

iTunes Store

The iPad wouldn’t be part of the Apple ecosystem if it didn’t include the iTunes Store. Visually, this version looks more like the Mac iTunes than the iPhone, with multiple panels that let you keep browsing along the sides and bottom even as you call up more details on top.

When you select something, however, an overlay spins out of the album art to give you more options — something very different than either the iPhone’s full-screen change or desktop iTune’s window reload.

App Store — 140,000 Apps for That… and This

The App Store on the iPad looks like two iPhone App Store apps side-by-side at the bottom, and a big CoverFlow view stacked on top. Since CoverFlow hasn’t been shown elsewhere on the iPad yet, it’s a little strange seeing it here… When an app is selected, the app page proper looks similar to the desktop iTunes presentation.

Far more interesting than the UI, however, was the announcement that “almost all” existing iPhone OS App Store apps — 140,000 and counting — would run on the iPad. (We’re taking “almost all” to mean the same ones that don’t run on an iPod touch due to the lack of a camera and telephony will likewise not run on the iPad for the same reason).

That’s huge, and it gives the iPad a monstrous software library right out of the gate, and it means anyone who already has iPhone/iPod touch apps can just hook an iPad up to iTunes and sync over their existing library (or, we supposed, just download them again from the App Store for free).

On the iPad, iPhone apps will run at normal size, framed in a black box, or can be pixel doubled via a 2x button to appear almost full-screen. The pixel doubling looked okay if not perfect, and better on fast-moving games then static social networking apps.

What’s more, thanks to the simultaneously released iPhone 3.2 SDK for iPad, developers can make iPad-specific user interfaces that take better advantage of the larger screen, and can also make “universal binaries” where users can download an app and be presented with an optimized UI for their iPad and one for the iPhone depending on which device they run it on at the time. We’re guessing this will make apps bigger overall, but simpler for the end user to manage. Of course, developers will also have the option to make, for example, App X for iPhone and App X for iPad and offer both independently on the App Store. A few prototypes have already been shown off, including the game NOVA, the New York Times newspaper app, New Yorker darling Brushes, MLB at Bat, and Need for Speed Shift.

We should also mention the iPhone 3.2 SDK contains some extra hooks that we haven’t seen in the iPad yet, including VoIP, a file repository, external display support, iChat-style video calling, file downloads from Mobile Safari, support for telephony like SMS and calls, and some prototype support for a “handwriting keyboard”. We may see more of this in the future, or we may not. With Apple, anything is possible.

Interlude — Still No 3rd Party Background Multitasking

Of course, the elephant in the iPad is that — just like the iPhone — none of the 3rd party App Store apps will run in the background and multitask. So you can’t run 2 apps at 1x side-by-side in landscape, though they’d easily fit. You can’t stream Pandora or Slacker while surfing the web (you have to use the iPod app, which does work in the background). You can’t leave AIM or BeeJive open to check for IMs while you’re composing in Email. (Push notifications should work for the latter, same as the iPhone, but it wasn’t demonstrated.)

That may change for power-users with a Jailbreak-like effort post-launch. Better yet iPhone 4.0, should be shown off and made available in beta form sometime in March, right around when the WiFi-only iPad ships. As of today, however, iPad apps remain unitaskers.

Likewise, nothing resembling a widget platform, such as Apple’s own Dashboard widgets, were shown off. They’d make just as much sense as optional popovers while using other apps as they would for glance-able data on the Lock or Home Screen.

Pounding out a blog post in Safari, if the menu bar alerted me to a new IM or @mention, being able to tap it, get a popover, quickly fire off a response, and go back to blogging would undeniably be better for some users than the current work, get push notification, exit app 1, launch app 2, perform action, exit app 2, launch app 1, resume work. Certainly the market for full-screen word processors and other window-shaded productivity apps on the desktop shows some prefer to “get things done” without distractions, but that’s not how everyone works.

And when you start getting into bigger touch screen devices, the idea of multiple app windows being visualized together, like Palm webOS cards or even Mobile Safari Pages makes me drool for drag-and-drop functionality. Holding to float and drag to re-arrange within an app is excellent. Being able to hold to float and drag into another app with be phenomenal. Maybe we’re not there yet in terms of hardware or software, or maybe iPhone 4.0 will start us down that road, but it’s something important to point out iPad and iPhone 3.2 haven’t shown off yet.

Safari Web Browser

Safari was the first app Steve Jobs showed off during the iPad demo and it resembles nothing more than the iPhone’s Mobile Safari gone big screen. Pinch to zoom, swipe to scroll work just as you’d expect though there’s obviously less zooming and scrolling needed on a 1024×768, 9.6″ screen.

All the controls are now at the top, which seems global on the iPad, and popovers rather than screen changes let you access things like bookmarks.

What hasn’t changed is support for plugins, which includes Java, Silverlight, .Net, ActiveX, but most notably for most users — Flash. Apple has stated that plugins in general and Flash in particular accounts for the majority of crash reports on the Mac platform, and that along with CPU requirements and battery drain are reasons for not having it on the iPad, just as they don’t have it on the iPhone.

Most users don’t care about that, however. They care that they can’t get their videos and games, including Hulu, Farmville, and adult content (aka porn). YouTube has a built in app for the iPad and other video sites like Vimeo have started making H.264 versions of their videos available as well. Games like Farmville are mouse-based and may require rethinking for the iPad’s touch controls anyway, can be offered as App Store apps, and Flash-maker Adobe has announced that their next version, Flash CS5 will allow Flash apps to be compiled as iPad/iPhone App Store apps anyway. Porn is an early adopter and already specifically targets the iPhone, so iPad should prove not problem for them (we’re told!)

That just leaves Flash-only websites, common to entertainment, restaurant, and other types of businesses that want to bring the visual excitement. Also to “Rich Internet Applications” that want to do more than even HTML/CSS/JavaScript based WebApps typically allow. For them, and for users who go to their sites, the iPad will only show the same blue lego-block of plugin fail that the iPhone shows now.

Apple likely won’t change their mind about supporting Flash, and some websites will want or need to keep using Flash because HTML5 and other new, standards-based alternatives just aren’t feature competitive yet. So if Flash-based web sites are a must for you, and you avoided the iPhone, you’ll probably want to avoid the iPad as well.

Email — No Longer Pane-less!

Anyone tired over having to tap in, tap out, tap in, tap out, to move non-linearly between email messages on the iPhone will be happy to know the iPad Mail app integrates the inbox with the message view window via a side pane in landscape mode and a popover in portrait mode.

In landscape view, rather than full screen email composition, Apple again provides an overlay. Fans of less eye-travel will no doubt appreciate it…

Otherwise, it’s the same rich, HTML Email with embedded pictures you’re used to on the iPhone, including viewing support for .jpg, .tiff, .gif (images); .doc and .docx (Microsoft Word); .htm and .html (web pages); .key (Keynote); .numbers (Numbers); .pages (Pages); .pdf (Preview and Adobe Acrobat); .ppt and .pptx (Microsoft PowerPoint); .txt (text); .rtf (rich text format); .vcf (contact information); .xls and .xlsx (Microsoft Excel).

Rumor has it, on the iPad you will also be able to choose other apps in which to open attachments, such as sending a Word .Doc file to Apple’s new iWork Pages app for iPad.

Photos, Now with Multitouch Peeking

Photos for iPad shows your picture albums in a grid of rough stacks. if you sync with iPhoto on the Mac, it will also pick up Faces (albums of people you know, based of facial recognition), Places (albums of locations you’ve been to, based on GPS), and Events (albums of things you’ve done, based on time stamps).

Tapping on a stack takes you to a grid of photos in that gallery with a thumbnail-ed scrubber along the bottom as an alternate means of selection. Tapping on a photo gives you a big, full-screen view.

In one of the few new multitouch tricks Apple unveiled with the iPad, you can also spread/pinch to zoom only partially in or out — to peek at the contents of stack to make it it’s the one you want before opening it. To open, you can keep spreading, and to close you can pinch it back down into a stack. This is the kind of thing we hope to see more of from Apple, because we know we’ll see more of it from App Store developers.

Photos also includes the de facto slide show functionality, and Apple has made some nicely animated ones like the paper-folding inspired Origami, which can be viewed in the app or from the Lock Screen.

As mentioned previously, Apple is also providing an accessory to import photo directly into the app, though we haven’t seen how that works yet.

iPod

Unlike the iPhone, the iPod app handles music and video. On the iPod touch, there’s no iPod app but two separate Music and Video apps. Confusingly, on the iPad there’s the aforementioned Video app for video, but an iPod app for music.

Consistency quips aside, iPod on iPad again looks more like iTunes player on the desktop, with a grid of albums

Again, instead of the iPhone’s full screen switch, when you select and album a widget-like square flies out with the track listings.

You can, of course, also get full screen album art, and in one of the least Apple-like UI choices seen on the device, darken it down and superimpose white lyrics on top of it.

We understand as well that iTunes LP will be fully supported on the iPad, which is Apple’s new interactive, old-school album format replete with all sorts of bonus material including video.

iBooks and iBooks Store

In addition to the updated built-in apps, Apple announced a new app available for download from the App Store called iBooks and is Apple’s entry into the eBook space. (Likely it wasn’t built in so as not to appear overly predatory towards existing eBook clients like Amazon’s Kindle app).

iBooks has two parts. The front — literally a bookshelf metaphor — contains a grid of your existing iBooks eBooks. Tap one and it zooms up full screen, or into a 2-page spread in landscape mode. You can tap to change a page or swipe to “turn” it complete with page curl. Apple is trying hard for the real-world interactions here.

When viewing a page, a popover allows you to increase or decrease the font size, and change the typeface. Options include Baskerville, Cochin, Palatino, Times New Roman, and Verdana.

Apple also mentioned that, along with color, video could be used inside iBooks. That will make them compelling for educational and professional settings.

In terms of format, Apple is using Adobe’s ePub, which means ePub titles elsewhere might work on the iPad. However, iPad ePub iBooks most likely will use Apple’s iTunes DRM (the same kind used on iTunes movies and TV shows, and App Store apps) and won’t be compatible with other readers. DRM-Free books, like DRM-Free music, should be fine on iPad and any device supporting the format.

Unlike iPod and iTunes Store, which are offered as separate apps, iBooks integrates the new iBooks Store into the reader. At the tap of the screen, the bookcase flips around and you’re in the store. iBooks Store looks visually very similar to the iTunes Store, which makes perfect sense. Browse for titles, tap to get more info, and hit Buy to make it your own. (At which point the book case flips back, the title appears top left on your shelf, and a handy bookmark is left to remind you it’s new).

It should be noted, however, that iBooks may be US only at launch, since content licensing on an international scale is a long, slow, bag of hurt. (Which may also be a factor in the app being downloadable rather than built-in).

iWork — Keynote, Numbers, and Pages

The other three, new App Store apps debuted by Apple were ports of their Mac productivity/office suite, iWork, which includes Keynote for presentations, Numbers for spreadsheets, and Pages for word processing.

According to a comment by Steve Jobs after the event, they’ll support exporting as Microsoft Office docs for PowerPoint, Excel, and Word respectively, as well as PDF, just like the Mac versions.

Advanced features shown off included animations for Keynote, charts and tables for Numbers, and auto text wrapping for Pages. Multitouch controls, such as tap and hold to float slides or table rows for easy repositioning, and bounding circles similar to iPhone cut/copy/paste for image positioning and masking all looked surprisingly usable.

Highlighting the benefit of a the virtual keyboard, just like Safari has a specialized layout for URL entry, Numbers includes specialized keyboards for numeric entry and formulas.

Each app will be available for $9.99 in the App Store, presumably in time for the March launch.

Not Concluded

It’s impossible to offer a conclusion on an announced but unreleased product. First, a lot can happen in terms of the final iPad release between now and March, or nothing could happen at all. Also, seeing a demonstration or spending a few minutes with the device will be different than having time for a full-on review.

For now, the question remains whether the iPad with just be a big iPod touch, or whether it will transform general-purpose computers the way the iPhone did mainstream smartphones and become a big iPod touch.

Either way, we’ll update this preview as often as required by new developments, so look forward to TiPb’s continuing coverage!

Apple Adds Official YouTube Channel with iPad Video, is @Apple Twitter Next?

2010-02-02T07:05:00.002-08:00

9to5mac is reporting that not only did Apple go an add a new, official YouTube channel — currently stocked with iPad video and Keynote — buthttp://twitter.com/apple has suddenly been vacated…

Could @apple finally be “getting” social networking? Will we one day be able to “friend” Steve Jobs? Do we want to?

Official Apple YouTube iPad video after the break!

Apple Releases iTunes 9.0.3

2010-02-02T07:05:00.001-08:00

Apple has released iTunes 9.0.3, and it is now available via Software Update (98.1MB).

iTunes 9.0.3 provides a number of important bug fixes, including:

iTunes no longer ignores your “Remember password for purchases” setting.
Addresses problems with syncing some Smart Playlists and Podcasts with iPod.
Resolves a problem recognizing when iPod is connected.
Addresses issues that affect stability and performance.

If you decide to install it right away, let us know how it works for you. If you’re waiting to see how it works, ask what questions you will in the comments!

[Thanks Andrew for the tip!]

UPDATED: Apple iPad Frame has Space for Missing Front-Facing Camera?

2010-02-02T07:04:00.002-08:00

According to Mission Repair, Apple’s iPad has a space for an iSight webcam/camera inside the device. Based on parts seemingly obtained through unofficial channels, the frame appears to have a very similar area to the MacBook’s existing iSight webcam enclosure.

If true, this is almost the exact same situation that occurred with the iPod touch G3, which was widely rumored to be getting a camera, ended up being introduced without one, and was torn-down after release to show the area where a camera was ready to go.

In that case, it was said Apple wasn’t pleased with the quality of the cameras they’d received, and so pulled them at the last minute. Could they have received a second bum batch for the iPad? Could they have tested out the awkward camera angle enforced by holding an iPad flat on the lap and decided no one needed to see the undersides of their chine? Seriously, people, we’re running out of ideas as to why there aren’t any cameras on these devices. Let us know what you think!

UPDATED: Did the demo iPad shown off by Steve Jobs have that missing iSight camera? Florian sent us a link to screen shots from the keynote that show… something. Check it out after the break…

[Mission Repair via MacRumors]

Rumor: Apple Also Developing Mac OS X-based, 15.4″ Tablet

2010-02-02T07:04:00.001-08:00

Silly TiPb, we should have known the very moment after Apple introduced the iPhone OS-based iPad, rumors would be revisited that an Mac OS X-based, 15.4″ version was also being developed. Sure enough, here comes TechCrunchsaying just that.

The info is based on a second hand source with main point corroboration from a second source (no names!)

If there is any truth to that, we could learn something as soon as Apple’s WWDC event this year, which will likely take place in June (just as it does every year). Apple typically uses the event to show off its new iPhone hardware, but it is first and foremost an event for Mac platform developers, and the past two years have seen OS X as a major component. This included two years ago when Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) made a surprise appearance and developers got a very early peek. There is already talk that WWDC 2010 could bring a similar peek at OS X 10.7. If there are some significant multi-touch components to OS X 10.7, you can expect the rumors to start flying about this new device that I’m talking about (or possibly touchscreen iMacs).

Yes, there have been rumors of touchscreen iMacs as well, which makes TiPb think maybe — just maybe — Apple is integrating multitouch screens into all their computers going forward, and the 15.4″ just represents the future of the MacBook Pro. iPad would then be a more literal bridge between iPhone and iMac — multitouch smartphone, appliance, and computer, one for consumers, one for pros.

No doubt Apple has — and has always had — any number of devices in their secret labs. When and if multitouch Macs see the light of day depends on when and if Apple and Steve Jobs think they can productize them.

Do you think Apple productize the multitouch Mac yet? Do you want them to?

From the Forums: How Would You Use an iPad? Will iPad Slow iPhone Sales? iPhone Accessories, and iPhone on Sprint?

2010-02-02T06:58:00.000-08:00

From the Forums is a great way to see what all of the current hot topics are on the TiPb forums. In order to create any new threads of your own or reply to any of the existing threads, you must be a registered member. Becoming a member is a simple process that will only take a few minutes out of your day, so if you have not already already done so, head on over and register now!

Yes, more iPad talk here. Does anyone really believe we will see iPhone sales slump because of the release of this new Apple creation? Let us know what you think!
The iPad may not be for you but that doesn’t mean others will not have a ton of practical uses for the device. What are some practical uses for iPad for you?
Every iPhone needs some accessories, so why not visit our forum dedicated to everything iPhone accessory related: All iPhone Accessories
The iPhone on Sprint, highly unlikely we will see that happen anytime in the near future but stranger things have occurred. Do you think we will ever see that day a iPhone is on the Sprint network?

Deals: eBay/Bing Cashback Now 20%!

2010-01-22T16:58:00.003-08:00

Ebay/Bing Cashback: Now 15%. Go go go!

Just a heads-up that the eBay + Bing cashback program is now at 15%. Essentially this means that Microsoft is giving you back 15% of your purchase price either instantly or after 60 days. Since eBay is *usually* the cheapest place to get cell phones, the 15% makes for some pretty sweet deals. Update: now 20%! Update 2: Dead =(

If you haven’t heard of this promotion, here’s how to get it:

1. Go to bing.com.
2. Search for nintendo wii.
3. See the Sponsored Sites area near the top of the page? The first should be an ad for eBay, and it should read “Buy Nintendo Wii. You may get 15% off with Payal if eligible.”
4. Click the Bing cashback link next to it.
5. This will take you to eBay’s site, and you should see a “Microsoft cashback” banner at the top of the page.
6. Buy any Buy It Now item and you’ll get further instructions sent to your email account.

Sometimes the Bing cashback comes instantly, and sometimes it doesn’t. I don’t know how to get this every time, but there’s a setting you can change in your Bing cashback account that activates it. (and even then, it doesn’t come every time)

What’s With Mic Problems on the N900?

2010-01-22T16:58:00.001-08:00

Mic problems are plaguing the N900.

The latest in the debacle that is the Nokia N900 launch (I STILL do not have mine yet, and it’s been almost 2 months) is a microphone issue that has cropped up on certain handsets. Doesn’t sound so bad at first, right?

Unfortunately, the problem prevents the phone from receiving any kind of audio, including voice calls. Which means…you basically can’t use your N900 as a phone. Drat the luck!

The mic issue is a little complicated, however. You might have a defective N900 (hardware issue), or you might have a more minor software issue that can be fairly painlessly solved.

The first thing you should do, other than verifying that you have the problem, is reboot your N900. There’s a bug in the FM radio application which disables microphone input until the phone is rebooted, and this could be your problem. If this solves it, you’re in luck.

If a reboot doesn’t fix it, the next step is a reflash. Grab the latest version of Nokia Software Updater, fire it up, search for new firmware, and then reinstall the current firmware. This seems to have helped a decent amount of people with the problem.

And by this point, if the reflash failed to solve the problem, you’ve probably gotten a defective N900, for which the only solution (right now) is to return it to the retailer OR use Nokia’s warranty service. I’d recommend going through the retailer channels first, since they’re probably quicker than Nokia. But keep in mind that you might have to deal with current out-of-stock issues – in other words, it may take more time to get your replacement device.

While the mic issue doesn’t seem particularly widespread, it’s definitely another blow to a device that I’d label as Nokia’s best hope – at least if it wasn’t marred by delays and stock issues.

To any users with the mic problem, you might find this talk.maemo.org link useful. It’s the maemo thread where the problems were first reported and any new developments should show up there.

Breaking: Nokia Closing Flagship Stores in USA

2010-01-22T16:57:00.000-08:00

Nokia's closing its two US Flagship stores.

Wow. That’s about all the words I have after learning that Nokia is planning to close its two retail stores in New York and Chicago.

While I’ve never been to the Chi-town location, the Flagship store on Fifth Ave. has been the site of many blogger meetups and events, as well as being an overall cool place to visit. It’s a shame to say the least.

The move comes on the heels of the company closing one of its two London store locations, and leaves Nokia with little more than an online web presence in the USA.

The S60 Fifth Edition Virtual Keyboard Shootout

2010-01-22T16:56:00.004-08:00

Pitting three virtual keyboards head-to-head. Who wins?

Last time I compared three physical keyboards. Now I’m going to attempt to tackle three different virtual keyboards – the stock Nokia one, DayHandInput, and SlideIt. While all three have their own unique advantages and quirks, sadly enough, the clear “winner” is a bit hazy. More inside.

Skip to the end to read the quick summary.

All tests were conducted with the 5530 XpressMusic phone.

The Problem With Nokia’s Virtual Keyboards

Nokia’s touch phones don’t support multi-touch. That’s one problem. A bigger problem, however, is the way that Nokia designs its virtual keyboards. I don’t mean looks, even though the 5530/5800XM keyboards seriously look like utter crap, but how the phone interprets a tap on a letter. On your PC’s physical keyboard, when you press a key, the letter or character that the key represents gets activated. The key fires when the button is pushed down, not when the key is let go. Unfortunately, Nokia hasn’t quite figured this one out yet.

In practical terms, this means that Nokia virtual keyboards will only spit out a letter once you let go of a button, never before. Say you’re typing the word pan. You hit the letter p with your right thumb, and the letter a with your left. Here’s the issue: if you hit the a too fast, or before lifting your finger from the p – the phone will completely ignore the p and just print out the a instead. Multi-touch would help the issue, but having the phone display the letter as soon as you touch it vs. touching it and letting go would be a huge, huge improvement.

And now let’s start the comparison:

DayHandInput, a virtual keyboard replacement.

The MrMilk/DayHandInput Modded Virtual Keyboard

A Chinese company created a replacement virtual keyboard for Chinese users, called DayHandInput. And then an enterprising user known as MrMilk took DayHandInput, added standard English letters/characters, and released it on some forums. What’s interesting about this modded keyboard is first – it looks super slick, and second – it supports a far, far larger number of possible characters thanks to a dragging system and multiple windows. Basically it works like this: The q key is assigned to both the q letter and the number 1. So you’d tap the q key to get the q, and tap/drag in any direction to get the 1. It works well, and even though it suffers from the same issue of only recognizing keys when the key is released, at least it’s not as embarassing to use.

It’s also customizable to a degree (since it’s a hack, there’s a lot of random Chinese stuff that appears as boxes in the options), but you can definitely change the keys and skin somewhat easily.

Good

- Looks better than the stock, and comes with different skins
- Several different keyboard types available, switch between them by either dragging or pressing a button
- Shaped more like a traditional keyboard than the stock
- Dragging system allows you to type multiple characters per key

Bad

- You have to tap one extra time before you can activate the keyboard
- In landscape mode, there’s a small gap between the text and the keyboard. When you’re writing a text message, the gap just happens to show part of the “Send Message” button, so I’ve actually typed part of a message with the keyboard, accidentally hit the Send key, and *bam* message sent. Dammit!
- Whoever customized the version I’m using mapped the secondary abc keyboard to activate when you hit the space bar and drag. So, of course, I do this by accident occasionally which is frustrating.

You can grab DayHandInput from here. More information about MrMilk’s modded version can be found here:

Hacked phone version
Dev. Cert. version, needs to be signed

IPMart forum thread

The SlideIt virtual keyboard.

SlideIt Virtual Keyboard

SlideIt is an innovative little virtual keyboard, which uses finger dragging from letter to letter, connect the dots style, to spell words. To type in a word, you press the first letter, drag your finger to the second, then the third, and so on. When you’ve finished, the interface will attempt to guess what word you just scratched out, and will present you with some other choices. It sounds silly, but it works. It just doesn’t work quickly.

Good

- Innovative key entry
- Text prediction is quite good
- Good for portrait mode users

Bad

- Easy to pick up but impossible to master
- Strictly a one-handed affair
- Slower text entry than the others
- A little laggy
- You can’t go back and edit a word – to do so, you have to delete and retype the entire word again
- Has trouble with large words and double letters – try typing in “craziness”

More information about SlideIt can be found at the official SlideIT site.

The stock 5530 Virtual Keyboard.

The Nokia 5530 XpressMusic Stock Virtual Keyboard

I really, really hate this keyboard. Yet I can’t deny that it’s the keypad with the least amount of issues.

Good

- Probably the most sensitive/fastest of the three keyboards
- Can highlight text while in keyboard mode

Bad

- Looks nasty
- Need several taps to get to the symbols menu

Quick Summary

It’s hard to say which of the three is really the winner here, even though the stock keyboard probably offers the best performance. DayHandInput isn’t too different from the stock, but my tendency to make more disastrous mistakes with it gave a slight edge to the standard Nokia keyboard. SlideIt, while something completely innovative, is just a tad too slow to be a serious contender unless you’re a one-handed, portrait mode typist.

Review for Phone Nokia

Concept Nokias: Nokia Stealth and Nokia N82 Dragonfly

Video: Raemote – Maemo 5 N900 infra red remote for your for Mac Mini, MacBook and MacBook Pro

Quick Launch any four Nokia N900 Maemo 5 apps from the status bar!

What’ll be your four quick launch apps?

Nokia RANT: Response to Ovum’s “Report” on Nokia’s ‘failures’.

“Nokia’s current smartphones, including the flagship N97 and N97 mini, run on ARM11 below 500MHz with an anaemic 128MB of RAM, a point that most other platforms have abandoned”

1.5 “Nokia’s flagship hardware is underpowered compared to rivals…”

2. The N900 is the only Nokia handset to use a next-generation chipset, which Renowden described as “surprising” and potentially harmful to the firm’s market share.

3. “Another area where Nokia is struggling is screen resolution and technology. Of the 20 handsets with highest screen resolution, Nokia has just one – again, the N900″

A slower processor or poor touch-screen resolution affects users’ experiences of devices,

4″A slower processor or poor touch-screen resolution affects users’ experiences of devices,”

Renowden added that the launch of Symbian^3 around the middle of the year could see Nokia announce several new products, but that until then the firm is caught between two stools.

“If Nokia announces new products in the coming months it could hurt sales of devices already on the market. However, due to the lack of announcements, people are wondering what the company has in the pipeline,” he said.

and it is the only major manufacturer still producing multiple smartphones in the candy bar/numeric keypad form factor.

Nokia OVI Player 2.1 released

The New Nokia C6 – the best keyboard from a Nokia touch/QWERTY hybrid?

THE KEYBOARD

Should you use Firefox Mobile or the stock N900 MicroB browser? [A Comparison]

Startup Time

Loading Static Web Pages

Loading Flash Web Pages

Ease of Use/User Interface

Bugginess/Stability

Memory Usage

Extensions and Add-ons

Browser-Exclusive Features

Conclusion

Five Games Actually Worth Playing on the N900

Angry Birds

Gweled

Duke Nukem 3D

Numpty Physics

ScummVM

Honorary Mentions

Revisiting the Nokia N900, Two Months Later

Thoughts on Hardware

Thoughts on Software

Thoughts on Apps and the App Store

Conclusion

New Nokia Symbian in the Works

Patented: Nokia gets Movement to Energy on Mobile Phones

Nokia N9 – The most powerful Nseries EVER!(?)

Nokia S40 to offer Touch, QWERTY and Dual SIM support!

Skype for Symbian now in OVI store

Nokia’s Software Philosophy – FAIL!!!

Video: Typing with Bluetooth Keyboard (Nokia SU-W8) on the Nokia N900 – Finally replace your netbook?

WebMD Mobile – a rescue team in you iPhone

Want to have your own hotel Empire? –Hotel Mogul is at your disposal

Organize your life with DailyTracker

Join as many friends as you want with your TextPlus

Sportacular a sports journal in your iPhone

Become a DJ in seconds with MixMeister app

Featured iPhone Lockscreen: Swank Lock by fosho4 [iPhone Themes]

Recommended: Trends in iPhone Cases at Gear Diary

Extend your iPhone home screen limit without jailbreaking [iPhone Tips and Tricks]

Quick Look: RandomPlay, an iPhone Visual Playlists App [iPhone Apps]

Redsn0w 0.9.2 Jailbreak for iPhone Is Out of Beta, Final Version Available for Download

Weekend iPhone Spring[board] Cleaning [iPhone Jailbreak]

Activator: a free and extremely powerful jailbreak app launcher for iPhone [Jailbreak Apps]

Great Line from Stephen Fry on iPhone’s Impact on the Entire Mobile Market

RedSn0w 0.9: iPhone 3.1.2 Jailbreak Available

ContactFlow Brings Coverflow to Your Contacts

RedSn0w 0.9.3 Jailbreak Enables Tethering of iPhone 3.1.2

Apple iPad Promotional Material Updated to Remove Flash Content, Adobe iPa

iPhone 3.2 SDK on iPad — iChat Video Calling, File Downloads, Telephony Support, Handwriting Keyboard… And Coming to iPhone?

How-to: Make Your Jailbroken iPhone Look Like an iPad

CEOh-Snap: Steve Jobs Says Adobe Lazy, Flash Buggy, Google Wants to Kill iPhone, Not “Not Evil”, Next iPhone A+ Update?

Forget Flash, iPhone, iPad Don’t Support ActiveX!

CEOh-Snap iPad Attack Edition — Google, Nokia, Microsoft, and Nintendo on Apple’s Tablet

Will Apple’s iPad Get Jailbreak and How Long Will it Take?

UPDATED: Apple Store Down — No iPad Pre-Orders, Could be Nothing…

Macmillan Books to Return to Amazon, Prices to Rise to iPad iBooks Level, Consumers to Vote with their Wallets

Steven Colbert Shows off iPad at the Grammy Awards!

RedSn0w 0.9 for Mac and Windows Officially Released by iPhone Dev-Team

Apple iPad and iPhone 3.2 Preview

What is the iPad and Where Does it Fit?

Significantly Better

Horizontals and Verticals

A Bit of History