We've seen a lot of iPhone news reader apps surface in the last month. First there was Flipboard, the popular iPad-turned-iPhone app. And then Zite, another prominent iPad news application, surfaced.
But my favorite news reader for both the iPhone and the iPad still has to be Pulse. Its image-driven interface is both attractive and user-friendly. And the app just got even better with the latest update...
After months of success on the iPad, Flipboard finally found its way to the iPhone recently. The news magazine app has gotten dozens of rave reviews and has already made its way into the top 50 list of free apps in the App Store.
While Flipboard does have a gorgeous user interface, it can be tough to locate all of its features. It's especially difficult trying to learn the app's ins and outs on the iPhone's smaller screen for the folks who weren't iPad Flipboard users...
If recent releases like Flipboard and Google Currents haven't fulfilled your need for an iPhone news magazine app, you'll be happy to hear that a new title has just surfaced in the App Store.
Zite, which was chosen by Apple as the number one iPad news app of 2011, is now available on the iPhone. Although it's similar in function to the aforementioned apps, its style is completely different...
Yahoo was once the most visited web portal on the internet, but it has had a rough last couple of years. In an industry where companies are transitioning into the mobile arena at breakneck speeds, Yahoo has struggled to stay relevant.
But that doesn't mean it's not trying. Yahoo recently unveiled several new mobile applications at its Product Runway event. There were a couple of notable titles, but the star of the show had to be the Flipboard-like app for the iPad, Livestand...
Apple has already revolutionised the way the music industry works with iTunes, and arguably changed the way mobile phone companies work forever. They set about doing the same thing with publishing when the original iPad was released in early 2010, but things haven't really taken off. One of Apple's latest additions in iOS 5 may have just changed all that, according to reports.
While magazine and newspaper publishers have put out their own apps in a bid to claw new life out of their ageing model, the take-up amongst customers has been hit and miss (with more misses than hits).
Apple's latest addition to its content arsenal is Newsstand, a "custom news stand for all your subscriptions" which, the company hopes, will provide increased exposure for magazine and newspaper subscriptions. If Condé Nast's recent figures are believed, Apple might just have cracked it...
Poor old Rupert Murdoch really isn't having the best of times is he? First there was the whole phone hacking debacle that is still rumbling along in the UK, then the same accusations found their way across the pond to the United States, and now it appears his pet project is a dysmal failure.
That pet project is, of course, The Daily — an iPad-only publication aimed at bringing news into the 21st century. The problem is, nobody is reading it...
BSkyB's Sky News iPad app has been so well received by both users and industry pundits alike that the company has now taken the decision to put the app's content behind a paywall, removing the free content that has been available since the app's release.
The move had been planned, according to Pocket-Lint, and now the app's 500,000 users will have to pay £4.99 a month to continue using the app, unless they happen to be a Sky Television subscriber, in which case the app will continue to be free...
United Airlines has announced that it will officially be switching from the traditional 12,000 page "flight bag"(operating manuals, logbooks, reference handbooks, navigation charts, etc) and opting for a more modern approach by handing out 11,000 iPads to Continental and United pilots.
The iPads will come preloaded with Jeppesen Mobile FliteDeck, "the industry's premier app featuring interactive, data-driven enroute navigation information and worldwide geo-referenced terminal charts."
If you're a New York Post reader and like to read your news via NYPost.com on an iPad, then you could find the process a little more complicated than it used to be. The newspaper has blocked access to its website from Apple's Mobile Safari browser.
In a clear attempt to push users away from the NYPost website and towards the iPad app. The New York Post's homepage now suggests users tootle off to the App Store if they want to get their news fix on Apple's super-successful tablet...
The current iPad 2 is good at a lot of things. It's extremely thin, easy to use, and lightning fast. It's no wonder why it continues to be a consumer favorite. However, the device could also use some serious upgrading in some categories, camera quality being one of them.
The current version of Apple's tablet has a camera capable of shooting 960 x 720 pixel photos, that's 0.7 megapixel. Apple's latest iPhone is sporting a camera that takes 5 megapixel photos, why the big difference?
The Cupertino company set out to make the iPad 2 thin. Not just thin enough to impress folks, but thin enough to call itself one of the slimmest tablets around. In fact, it lead that category until Samsung went back to the drawing board with their Tab 10.1 and shaved a few more centimeters off the top.
But contrary to popular belief, being thin has its disadvantages, and in this case it cost the iPad 2 a decent camera. Obviously due to design restraints, the camera module that Apple used in the iPad 2 had to meet certain size requirements. At the time there must have not been a decent sensor that fit the bill, so they used the same one that's in their 4G iPod Touch.
Well 9to5Mac is reporting today that OmniVision has unveiled a 5MP camera sensor, that is smaller than its predecessors. Since the digital imaging solutions company happens to be the main supplier of camera sensors for iDevices, it's likely that we will see this (or something similar) in future Apple products.
"The OV5690 offers best-in-class low-light performance and image quality while also enabling 20 percent thinner camera modules..."
Not only does the camera take 5MP stills, it records video in full 1080p. The current iPad camera records video in 720p, so the upgrade would be quite noticeable. Since the camera seems to be one of the tablet's biggest downfalls, it would be logical to assume Apple is looking to upgrade it in future iterations.
What do you think of the current iPad 2 camera? Would you get an iPad 3 if the camera quality was improved?
The iPad 2 is one of the most successful Apple products to date in a number of categories. One of those categories is, it has yet to be jailbroken. Now I say that lightly, because I realize that a handful of intelligent folks have hacked their iPad 2s. But nearly 3 months after its release, there is still not a widely available jailbreak solution for Apple's new tablet.
Recently we reported that infamous iDevice hackers p0sixninja and GeoHot were in a friendly competition to see who could break into the iPad 2 first. That unfortunately does not seem to be the case. In a recent online Q & A session with p0sixninja, the hacker confirmed that GeoHot has since declined the iPad 2 challenge due to media attention. I guess you can get a little paranoid after being taken to court by the likes of Sony.
So what now? Comex is out, GeoHot's not in, are we ever going to see a jailbreak for the iPad 2? A ray of sunshine cast down on the Twitter world yesterday, as p0sixninja once again speculated on the status of the new iPad jailbreak. A Twitter follower asked the Chronic Dev team member if the iPad 2 jailbreak would be weeks, months, or years. Apparently the answer is just weeks!
Joshua Hill (p0sixninja) seems to be the most vocal on the status of the iPad 2 jailbreak. After a known exploit was patched by Apple last month, the Dev Team and other hackers have been very quiet about their progress. It'll be interesting to see if Hill and the rest of the Chronic Dev team can deliver an iPad 2 jailbreak within weeks as predicted. I know of many iPad 2 owners that would greatly appreciate it. We'll keep you updated.
Any questions?
Remember that iPad case that we showed you earlier this year called the Extreme Sleeve? Let me give you a quick reminder. G-Form, a company well known for their extreme sports protective gear has ventured into the portable electronic arena. They have made protective gear for MacBooks and other laptops, and they now have one for the iPad.
Their G-Form Extreme Sleeve has been grabbing headlines over the last few months, as the G-Form team has gone through great lengths to prove its durability. They've dropped bowling balls on their Extreme Sleeve-covered iPads and have even dropped one out of an airplane. Each time the iPad has emerged unharmed.
When we previously reported on the product it was not available yet, but it promised to start shipping May 2nd of this year. Well it looks like the Extreme Sleeve is starting to make its way to user's hands, as a new video from Mobile Syrup puts the Sleeve through its own durability test. Is the Extreme Sleeve tough enough to protect an iPad from being run over by a car? Let's watch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrLNVcYz6ZM
Though the video stops playing, the iPad appears to be just fine. Now that these G-Form Extreme Sleeves are available to the masses, I'm guessing this isn't the last we've seen of these extreme iPad survival videos. I'm sure G-Form is loving the free viral advertising.
What do you think?