iPad mini

Microsoft rolls out Bing social sidebar on iPads

Microsoft recently overhauled its Bing search engine around a new social bar to let desktop users "find people who are relevant to your search based on what they’ve shared, publically blogged or tweeted about".

Friday, the Bing team announced that the feature is now available on the iPad and iPad mini via browser support for iOS Safari. The new UI adapts to landscape or portrait orientation automatically, with the social bar on the right.

If you're a big Bing fan, this addition makes it easy to learn what your friends shared on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Klout related to what you’re searching for...

iPad mini now outselling iPad 4, 100M Apple tablets predicted for 2013

When I come to think of it, technology buyers often times are an unpredictable bunch. Seven out of each ten told iDB they would never buy a non-Retina iPad mini, lots of folks appeared disappointed post-announcement and more than half told us they would never buy and iPad mini. Heck, even kids haven’t fallen for Apple’s advertising blitz as they want full-size iPads for Christmas.

Fast forward to today, when NPD DisplaySearch estimates the iPad mini is now outselling its bigger brother as Apple doubles display panel orders with LG Display and AU Optronics to more than twelve million units, up from the previous estimate of six million holiday units...

Google+ holiday treats: better photo experience, conversation cards, more fluid UI

With over a hundred million active users, Google+ is, as Eric Schmidt put it, "a viable competitor to Facebook" and its nearly one billion users. This morning, the search firm is issuing new iOS and Android builds that enable a bunch of holiday treats. On the iOS side, you can now swipe through photo albums inline or tap once to see the photos full screen. New conversation cards are also available for highlighting specific content, from longer snippets to bigger photos to comments that slide in beneath each post...

Twelve South announces new iPad mini BookBook case

The BookBook case line is perhaps one of the most popular on the market. Twelve South makes them for a number of Apple products including MacBooks, iPads and iPhones. And, as the name suggests, they all sport a similar leather-bound book design.

Last month, Twelve South updated its iPhone BookBook case to support the new iPhone 5. And this week, it's released a version of it for the iPad mini...

Apple said to be working on high resolution iPad mini displays

To me, it seems like a no-brainer that Apple will address the low-resolution display in the iPad mini by its next-generation. After all, the tablet's lack of a Retina display has seemingly been the only complaint amidst otherwise extremely positive reviews.

But no-brainer or not, it's always nice to hear reports that help back up gut feelings. And the latest one comes out of Taiwan, where a familiar publication has it on good authority that Apple is talking to its suppliers about high-res iPad mini panels...

Apple re-launches app gifting with a new custom delivery option

The App Store on iOS 5 and below had an interesting feature I really used to love a lot, the ability to send your friends the gift of apps.

You'd just pick a piece of software in the App Store, hit the Gift This App button and Apple would send a nicely formatted email message to a lucky bastard along with a link to download an app, just like that.

With iOS 6, the feature was removed with seemingly no apparent reason. Now, app gifting has been available on desktop iTunes all this time. Fortunately, the company's quietly updated iTunes backend to re-enable app gifting on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices, just in time for the holidays...

UK’s Everything Everywhere announces LTE expansion to 17 new markets by March 2013

Everything Everywhere (EE), a joint venture between Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile and France Télécom’s Orange, launched UK's first commercial 4G LTE network on October 30 and today the company has announced a network expansion to seventeen new markets in the country, to be finished by March of next year.

The carrier powers UK's sole 4G LTE network so would-be iPhone buyers should be delighted to learn that its 4G density is “being increased on a daily basis"...

Analyst projects higher iPhone sales, cannibalized iPad purchases

As we enter the last weeks of December, Wall Street analysts are adjusting their forecasts for Apple and its keystone products, the iPhone and iPad.

Sterne Agee's Shaw Wu Wednesday told investors increased supplies of the iPhone 5 likely means more sales, while tablet buyers are shifting toward the iPad mini, resulting in slightly fewer sales overall.

After talks with supply chain sources, Wu expects Apple to sell this quarter 47.5 million of the new handsets, up from his earlier projected 47.3 million units. As for iPads, the analyst trimmed his sales forecast to 23.5 million, down from 25 million. In both cases, supply was the critical factor...

Google News improves iPad experience with cleaner UI and new gestures

Google today announced some welcome (if not way overdue) changes to its free news aggregator platform, Google News. The enhancements are aimed specifically at Apple's iPad and, of course, Google's own Nexus tablets and include new gestures and more breathing room between articles, which de-clutters the interface. If you used to dislike Google News because it threw every link it could at you, give the updated web app another try as it does feel more natural and fluid on iPads than before...

Twitter app update with Instagram-like filters now available for download

As I reported yesterday, Twitter has updated its Android app with the promised Instagram-competing photo filters, a first for the micro-blogging service seeking to supplant Instagram as your favorite photo sharing service. That, my friends, is a pretty tall order given Instagram's popularity, the Facebook backing and a growing number of new features Instagram's gaining. Be that as it may, Twitter has waited until this morning to roll out filters to its iOS client.

You're gonna love the ability to snap a scene, edit the photo with the filters supplied by Aviary and tweet out your work without jumping back and forth between Twitter and your go-to iPhoneography app. You can grab the free download right now from the App Store. More on other features right after the break...

Find My iPhone, now with driving directions to lost devices

A small but noteworthy update to Apple's Find My iPhone software has just surfaced on iTunes. The iPhone and iPad app which lets you locate stolen or misplaced devices on a world map has gained ability to provide driving directions to your lost gear. This capability requires the new Find My iPhone app version 2.0.1 or later and iOS 6 or later. Apple has also enabled another tweak where Play Sound, Lost Mode and Erase buttons appear separately from the main map view. Unfortunately, the repugnant stitched leather theme is still all over the app...

Microsoft’s Surface just a blip with 0.13 percent of tablet traffic

Apparently, more of Microsoft's Surface tablets are showing up in commercials and television episode placements than online. Despite an aggressive push, the Windows device accounted for just 0.13 percent of advertising served to tablets during November, according to one mobile advertising network. The dismal numbers are just the latest sign the much-heralded Surface just isn't selling.

Microsoft's outspoken boss Steve Ballmer acknowledged as much when he recently called Surface numbers "modest". By comparison, 0.91 percent of Google's Nexus tablets displayed ads between November 12 and November 18. The percentages come just a day after a report that the iPad mini saw ad impressions climb 28 percent daily during the November...