Consoles and Gadgets: iPad

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Apple names April 30th, 5PM as date and time for 3G iPad retail launch

There was a bit of confusion with Apple's online store update yesterday as to when the 3G version of its iPad will actually make its retail debut. Let that fog of ignorance be no more, as Cupertino has today named April 30th, a Friday, as the day the WiFi + 3G slate will arrive in stores. In American stores, that is, don't get all excited if you live outside the 50 states. That's also the date when early (read: before yesterday) pre-orders will be fulfilled. Deliveries for those were promised for "late April," though clearly this date has more of the late and less of the April to it.

via: engadget

Keepin' it real fake: iPad QWERTY slider edition

We're not about to cover every iPad knockoff that emerges from parts unknown, but this particular device packs just enough KIRF innovation to get us to take notice. The biggest selling point, so to speak, is the tablet's sliding QWERTY keypad, which packs some MacBook-esque keys and a ThinkPad-style pointing stick. As if that wasn't enough, you'll also apparently get WIndows 7 for an OS, along with a 10-inch display of unspecified resolution, and an Atom N450 processor at the heart of rig. No indication of a price -- or even a name, for that matter.

source: Shanzhaiben

Keepin' it real fake: Moonse iPad knockoff loses a few inches, runs Android

This is far from the first iPad knockoff to emerge from KIRF-land, but Moonse's new E-7001 tablet may just be the first to garner some serious interest -- if it ever actually turns up for sale, that is. Supposedly, the tablet will sell for as little as 900 Chinese yuan (or about $130), which will get you a 7-inch touchscreen, a 600MHz Rockchip RK2808 processor (which could possibly be upgraded to a Cortex-A8 before launch), Android 1.5 for an OS, an SD card slot for storage, built-in WiFi, and a promised five hours of battery life. What's more, while it is slightly thicker than an iPad, it apparently weighs just 0.7 pounds, or about half as much as the iPad, and it boasts a few advantages of its own, in a front-facing camera and a USB port. As you may have guessed, there's not even a hint on availability, but it does seem to at least exist in prototype form, and there's plenty more shots of it at the source link below.

source: Shanzaiben

iPad international launch delayed until the end of May

24diggsdigg Uh oh. Looks like all that US popularity has taken Apple by surprise and the European arrival for the iPad will be shifted back from the earlier promised "late April" to the end of May. Citing more than 500,000 tablets sold in the first week of American availability, the Cupertino brain trust urges its international audience to look forward to May 10, which is when availability and pricing for the rest of the world will be specified.

source: Apple

iPad vs. JooJoo... Fight!

Sure, they might be worlds apart in quality, usefulness, and desirability, but even still, comparisons are inevitable. The iPad (right) and the JooJoo (left) hit the hands of consumers on the same weekend, offer large-screen browsing experiences controlled entirely by a capacitive touchscreen, and... well, you get the idea. So, how do the two devices stack up externally? It's a pretty fair fight, hardware-wise. The JooJoo is thicker and heavier, but also scores a good amount more screen space -- its 16:9 ratio almost turns it into an extruded lengthwise version of the 4:3 iPad. Unfortunately, that screen is a real let down when viewed off axis, and isn't nearly as responsive or accurate as the iPad's in use. Both of the devices offer scratch resistant glass fronts and brushed aluminum backs, though there's a bit of give to JooJoo's materials that smacks of slightly lower quality. You can read the reviews to get an idea of how dramatically different these two devices are in actual use.

source: engadget

iPad Reviews – Not a Laptop Killer, But Pretty Close First of iPad reviews are now popping up on the Internet. From Wall Street Journal, to USA Today, to PC World, to New York Times, all have great things to say about the product. One thing however most of them have agreed upon is the fact that it is not really a notebook/netbook replacement, but rather a great companion which could do tasks like email, web browsing, music, videos, book reading and so on with great ease.

According to The Houston Chronicle’s Bob "Dr. Mac" LeVitus, the iPad creates a new category of mobile devices:

It turns out the iPad isn’t as much a laptop replacement as I thought (though it could easily be used as one). Instead, it’s an entirely new category of mobile device. For example, now when I want to surf the Web from the couch or back deck, the iPad is the device I choose. Starbucks? Same thing. Think of the iPad as a new arrow in your technology quiver, an arrow that will often be the best tool for a given task.

I had high expectations for the iPad, and it has met or exceeded most of them

Mossberg of WSJ found the battery life of the iPad to be exceptional – he got well over the quoted 10 hours. He managed to “watch four feature-length movies, four TV episodes and a video of a 90-minute corporate presentation, before the battery died midway through an episode of The Closer” – all on a single charge! Now that is amazing! His verdict on the iPad is:

So I’ve been using my test iPad heavily day and night, instead of my trusty laptops most of the time. As I got deeper into it, I found the iPad a pleasure to use, and had less and less interest in cracking open my heavier ThinkPad or MacBook. I probably used the laptops about 20% as often as normal, reserving them mainly for writing or editing longer documents, or viewing Web videos in Adobe’s Flash technology, which the iPad doesn’t support, despite its wide popularity online.

If you’re mainly a Web surfer, note-taker, social-networker and emailer, and a
consumer

of photos, videos, books, periodicals and music—this could be for you. If you need to create or edit giant spreadsheets or long documents, or you have elaborate systems for organizing email, or need to perform video chats, the iPad isn’t going to cut it as your go-to device.

I will be getting mine by the end of this week, we’ll for sure have a review of it, along with some hands-on videos. Stay tuned!

via: redmondpie

First Look: Apple iPad The Apple iPad ships this week, and with its arrival, Apple may singlehandedly usher in the era of tablet computing slate-style devices that look very unlike a typical computer. Bolstered by clever integration between hardware and software--as we've come to expect from Apple thanks to products like the iPhone--the iPad is a multi-purpose slate that holds the potential to be different things to different users. The various pricing options also reflect this: $499 (16GB), $599 (32GB), $699 (64GB). Add $130 to each of these Wi-Fi models for a 3G option in late April.

It's true that the iPad resembles an oversized iPhone, but in some ways, that comparison diminishes all sorts of new potential. The iPad's screen is three times larger than that of the iPhone/iPod Touch, and that extra real estate primes the iPad for activities you couldn't even consider doing with the comparatively tiny iPhone/iPod Touch screen.
Based on my initial launch-event hands-on with the iPad, this device's functionality exhibits both promise, and disappointment. The latter reflects its flexibility as a full-on alternative to a netbook.
Equipped with the same underlying operating system as the iPhone and iPod Touch, it comes as no surprise that the iPad immediately feels familiar. The main menu mimics that of the current iPhone OS, with four icons across and four rows down, plus Safari, Mail, Photos, and iPod icons in a row at the bottom. Icons have the same characteristics as those on the iPhone, and include Calendar, Contacts, Notes, Maps, YouTube, iTunes, App Store, and Settings. One new item is a dedicated icon for Videos--a logical addition given the device's roomy screen. Beyond that, you can add apps from the Apple App Store; a separate section will highlight apps optimized for iPad. The 3G iPad won't have phone or traditional SMS functionality.

The iPad packs in 802.11 a/b/g/n wireless, and as mentioned, a 3G option is expected in late April. The iPad also has Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, and is powered by Apple's 1-GHz A4 processor system-in-a-chip.

The 9.7-inch LED-backlit screen uses IPS (in-plane switching) technology to achieve better color and contrast, and a wide 178-degree angle of view. Its native resolution of 1024-by-768 pixels is sufficient for watching high-definition video, viewing photos using the slideshow feature, and for flicking-through content.

The screen dominates the device, with a wide black bezel surrounding its fingerprint unfriendly oleophobic (oil-resistant) display. That bezel almost seemed like overkill, until I took the iPad in hand. Then, I found the bezel necessary, as that's where my fingers automatically gravitated in order to hold the device in my hands. While the iPad is super slim (just a half-inch thick), I actually had some difficulty handling it steadily in anything longer than short spurt. At 1.5 pounds, and measuring 9.6 by 7.5 by .5-inches, I found it too heavy to comfortably hold in one hand, which is troublesome if you plan on using it as an e-reader. Other e-readers, like Amazon's Kindle 2 or Spring Design Alex eReader, are much lighter in hand and therefore make for a much more comfortable user experience. I found using two hands much more viable, but my relatively small hands then had issues trying to reach across the expanse of the vertical unit's on-screen keyboard. Furthermore, I quickly realized my hands would tire in this position after reading just a few chapters of a long novel.

Because of the larger display, pretty much all of the native applications we're used to viewing on the iPhone look and function better on the iPad. What I've seen so far of video playback of content purchased on iTunes appeared stunning on the iPad.

Like the iPhone before it--and unlike what we expect from future, competing Windows-based tablet devices, the iPad has a minimalist design, with virtually no complexities and smooth, aluminum back. At the bottom of the iPad are the dock connector and the speaker grille. The sole buttons are Home Button centrally situated beneath the display, and the volume rocker on the side. The iPad is missing integrated expansion (via USB or flash memory, or both); and, so far as we know before shipping, it's missing multitasking--which the bigger screen practically begs for in this Facebook-driven, always-connected age.

Yes, Apple will offer separate dock-connectors for accessing digital images via a USB port or an SD Card, but these are exorbitantly priced, and won't open the iPad for use in a way that mimics a more versatile netbook. And I find it stifling to think that a device capable of much more than my iPhone 3GS can't just take a USB flash memory drive and access any of an array of file types. This omission in particular is a serious limitation to iPad's functionality--and its ability to compete with less expensive, slightly heavier and bulkier, but more full-featured netbooks.

A little more on the iPad's integrated input capabilities. Simply put, if you plan to do a lot of typing, the iPad's touch keyboard is no match for the physical keyboard found on a netbook. The touch keyboard is a larger version of the iPhone's. But in the pre-shipping version of the iPad, the keyboard lacks the iPhone's letter magnification when you press a key, and I missed this visual cue immensely. It also lacks the haptic (vibration) feedback common to Android phones. So with no physical or visual feedback when you press a key, I found myself frustrated as I tried to pound out a long e-mail or note.

As I already mentioned, when using the keyboard in vertical mode, my small hands had difficulty maneuvering around the keyboard--my thumbs couldn't stretch across the whole device to reach the keys. Horizontal mode felt much more natural, but as a touch-typist, I still made more errors than I would with a physical keyboard. More critically, while I've gotten fairly speedy with tapping away on my iPhone 3GS' keyboard, I didn't feel anything near the same speed or affinity for the touch keyboard on iPad during my initial hands-on--something I attribute to the physical expanse of the device, and how my fingers aligned with it relative to the keyboard. To type, I needed to put the device flat on a surface, not a particularly comfortable experience. (Apple will soon have a $69 keyboard dock accessory.)
According to what was known as of the launch event, the iPad runs iPhone OS 3.2 (which has not been released for actual iPhones yet). While the friendly, easy-to-use, interface gives the iPad an immediate built-in audience, the lack of a freshened design for the iPad feels like a let-down considering how long the iPad has been in development. There might be some as-yet unknown incremental differences between versions 3.1 and 3.2, but on the surface, the iPad's interface looked exactly like a blown-up version of my iPhone 3GS'.

In my hands-on before the iPad shipped, the OS didn't translate very well from the much smaller iPhone to the iPad. It's not so much about the touch aspect of the interface; in fact, navigating by touch is a huge benefit on the large screen, and superior experience to, say, the joystick-based navigation of the comparably sized, non-touch Amazon Kindle DX screen. But images, icons, and text weren't as crisp as I'd expected on the early model at the launch event's pre-production model. At times, I found the experience much like watching standard definition video on an HDTV, in that some aspects of the operating system's visuals didn't appear optimized for the iPad's display. I'll update this review after seeing the shipping product later this week.
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On the whole, Apple has done a good job of optimizing its built-in core apps for the iPad's large screen.

As a photo viewer, the iPad shines. Photos looked superb on the iPad's display, and it uses all of the familiar multitouch gestures (flick, pinch to zoom) found on the iPhone's photo app. The iPad's ample screen showcase images well, and it permits you to preview many more images, more easily than on the smaller iPhone.

The iPad's photo application is much better than the iPhone's, too, with on-the-fly slideshow creation (complete with transitions). Simply choose from among five transitions and pick the music you'd like to add (if any), and you're off. I don't see the iPad replacing inexpensive digital photo frames, but I certainly do understand how an iPad might double as a photo frame while it's standing upright in its dock.

Another convenience: The photo app provides different ways of viewing the images (including sorting by places, people, events, and a mini-thumbnail bar at the bottom of the screen to jump quickly to other photos in the album). Unfortunately, the sorting capabilities will only work if you're using iPhoto--which means that those of who use any number of alternative imaging applications for the PC or the Mac (the majority of potential iPad users) are left in the dark with regard to those features. And how convenient it is to use the photo viewer for non-Mac users remains a question I look forward to answering when I can try iTunes for the PC with the shipping iPad.

The e-mail app has been redesigned to take advantage of the spacious screen, too. For example, when in landscape mode, the e-mail app shows recent messages and a search bar at the left, and displays the selected message at the right--an approach that's not viable on the iPhone's smaller screen.

The Calendar app benefits greatly from the iPad's display. Now, calendar entries are more readable, and the day and weekly views in particular look terrific. For example, in the weekly view, a drop-down menu makes it simple to switch among different calendars for your household.

The reimagined, highly visual iPod library looks very different on the iPad. In landscape view, you can easily see video-playback chapters, or view info about the video while previewing it in a pane at right. hows how video-playback chapters look in the Video player.

One of the big pitches for iPad is for using it as an e-reader. And here is where iPad has the potential to be divisive. On the one hand, Apple clearly has the retail digital download model down pat with its iTunes store, so it's reasonable to assume that Apple may be able to entice consumers to shop for digital books, too.

The bigger question is, how well does the iPad--with its glossy, glarey screen and slightly greater weight--do as an e-reader? Stay tuned for our full review of the shipping iPad, complete with a report of the Apple iBookstore and iBooks reader experience.

My first impressions on the subject? The iPad makes it easy to browse your library books, represented visually by colorful book covers. The iBooks app, in horizontal mode, allows you to have two pages on the display at once--and it tries to mimic the experience of reading a book, right down to the visuals of additional pages on the left and right, and the darker area in the center, where the spine would be. I could easily scroll along the bottom of a book to jump to a specific page, with no notable delay when doing so. And I particularly liked how the iPad showed the page number, and out of how many, you were jumping ahead to; and, how it indicated the number of pages remaining in the chapter. (Just one more chapter before I go to sleep...I swear!) Dedicated e-readers could learn something from this part of iBooks' design.

I found the iBooks reader's page-turn animations are both cool and annoying. The flicker for a quick page turn bugged me--nevertheless, it was better than suffering through the multiple flashes that one endures on most E-Ink readers as they try to redraw the page.

One of the big concerns among developers and users before the iPad's announcement was whether iPhone apps would work on the device. Thankfully, they do, but the experience on the iPad isn't exactly ideal. You can either view an iPhone app as a small window or doubled to fill the display. On the pre-shipping iPad, I demoed the 3D-intensive Assassin's Creed and Oregon Trail apps, and was immediately put off by the obvious pixelation. Text in Facebook iPhone app looked fuzzy, too. Again, the analogy here is to standard definition content versus high-definition content on an HDTV.

Another concern remains Apple's lack of Adobe Flash support, which means as-is services like Hulu and the full YouTube catalog can't be viewed on the iPad. Even as some sites switch to HTML 5, the lack of Flash is disappointing, given the format's prevalence across the Web.

Based on my initial handling of the pre-shipping iPad, I was a tad underwhelmed: The reality is that the iPad looked and behaved like an iPhone (or iPod Touch) on steroids--and that's not always a good thing given the potential for the iPad to make a run for replacing my netbook--or even my PC--for certain activities. I'm intrigued--but need to see the iPad-specific apps in use, and try the shipping version to get more of a feel of just how the iPad complements the existing pantheon of mobile computers. And how well it works together with the iPhone, in terms of sharing both data and apps.

via: internet

iPad Unboxing Videos If you’re wondering about the box contents which are included, along with the standard iPad packaging, you’ve come to the right place. We have compiled a couple of unboxing videos in one place so you get an idea what you’ll get in with your iPad come this Saturday.

So after the first of the iPad reviews, the first unboxing video of iPad to hit the Internet was done by Andy Ihnatko. He showed off the contents, which are pretty much like in any standard Apple packaging that you would expect. It includes instruction manuals, a wall charger, the standard Apple USB cable to copy data, a couple of Apple logo stickers and of course the iPad itself.

In the second of videos, actor/comedian Stephen Fry shows off a brief unboxing/unpacking, which mostly includes all the extra bits of official accessories that you can order with the iPad. This includes the iPad Case, iPad Dock and iPad Keyboard with Dock.

via: tipb

100,000 iPads Sold on First Day? Business Insider is reporting that approximately 91,000 iPads were sold in the first 6 hours of the presale. With the presale lasting 8 hours, they must have hit 100,000 pre-orders today. These numbers are just estimates, but still impressive.

Business Insider’s Source, Philip Elmer DeWitt, had been following the sales throughout the day. He estimated that Apple had sold 20,000 iPads in the first 2 hours, 74,000 in the first 4.5 hours, and finally 90,000 in the first 6 hours. If these numbers are any where close to accurate, then Apple must have surpassed 100,000 units by the end of the day.
Of course, these numbers are not official. They are estimates from 3rd parties. It is not known if Apple will report their numbers right away. They usually like to announce a giant number at one of the keynotes.
Did you order your iPad today? I reserved one for pick up, so I can take part in the launch festivities. Only a few more weeks!
You can follow me on twitter or join our facebook fanpage to keep yourself updated on all the latest from Microsoft, Google and Apple.

via: internet

PadNotes App For iPad [Video Demo] PadNotes is a new iPad App that permits to write, draw, or highlight text on any document while using any image or PDF file as the background. It can be used for quickly filling out forms, taking notes, drawing a shape and exporting the completed documents as images or PDF files via e-mail or network sharing.

Regardless of age, PadNotes will really make it fun to do image drawing on iPad. You can draw straight lines, or curves with multi-color pens of your choice, just by choosing from selection bar. You can fill different portions with different colors of your selection. You can also erase full, or part of it if you make mistake.
Taking notes in long hand wasn’t so much fun ever before. You can write, draw, make graph and take notes either in long hand or in typed form in color or in black & white as you wish. Reading documents, books etc with highlighting functionality, and writing notes in the side margin of the document was never so easy before. Turning pages and going smooth to and fro in the document is also fun in itself.
For students, they can do their homework of Math class here. You can even fill forms and copy/paste from other documents without any trouble. It saves time and energy and provide sharing facility with others.

Here is a video demo which shows PadNotes running using iPad SDK.

via: internet

Apple's iPad: Is it a computer? It seems obvious that the upcoming Apple iPad is a computer, but many people -- both Apple supporters and haters -- seem to feel passionately that it's not a computer. So what is it?
Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a "computer" as "a programmable, usually electronic device, that can store, retrieve, and process data." That certainly matches the description of the iPad, the iPhone, and other smartphones, as well as video game consoles, and programmable Hewlett-Packard pocket calculators that came out in the 1970s.

But some seem to get worked up denying that it's a computer. That's true of both the device's defenders and detractors.

Blogger Richard Lord, for example, writes: The iPad is not a computer:
--My considered opinion: the iPad is a revolutionary device, because it’s not a computer. The iPad isn’t for writing, it’s for reading. It’s not for making films, its for watching films. It’s not for developing software, it’s for using software. The iPad is a consumer device. What makes the iPad revolutionary is its single-minded focus on media consumption.

Kate MacKenzie doesn't say the iPad is not a computer. But she does call it a "computing appliance," proclaiming: "The Mac Is Dead. Long Live Apple's iPad Appliance":
--Both the iPhone and iPad are computing appliances; powerful, easy to use, inexpensive, and available to a rapidly growing customer base -- those of us who just want to do things with our apps, and not be beholden to whatÕs inside.
The iPad represents a computing toaster; no, a computing kitchen full of tools, but each easier to use than anything available on a Mac (or, a Windows PC). Those Mac and PC users with many years of computing experience will decry the iPad as being a toy, not suitable for real work, not even really a computer. The rest of us will simply use it, again, and again, and often in situations where a Mac once ruled. We will download apps, play games, communicate with one another, and leave the past behind.

Also, consider the comments on my tongue-in-cheek post last week, "How to get an iPad before they go on sale." "Cymru Plaid" says:
--For most people, computer means PC - it runs a real operating system, you can connect peripherals to it, etc. This isn't a PC. It's just a huge iPod... Unless you think the iPod is a computer. In which case you're a blasted idiot.

Cymru's opinion is pretty popular, many people believe the iPad is not a computer.
But they're wrong. Of course, the iPad is a computer, as is the iPhone and iPod, even the iPod Nano. They store, retrieve and processes data, in the form of music and videos. They're electronic. And they're programmable -- even the iPod Nano gets occasional updates from Apple.

The iPad is a computer. It appears to be a very simple, easy to use, and relatively inflexible computer, compared with a Mac, Windows, or Linux PC. But it's still a computer. Arguing otherwise is silly.

via: internet

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