In his latest column for the WSJ, technology pundit Walt Mossberg has taken a look at three different eBook reader applications for the iPad: Apple’s own iBooks, Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook app.
The verdict is interesting: according to Mossberg, they’re more similar than different. Read more
I feel bad writing this. No, let me rephrase: I love when facts prove me wrong. I especially love when third party developers of iPad applications prove me wrong. A couple of weeks ago I wrote a piece called “Your Alternative iPad Browser Sucks” in which I basically stated that every alternative browser I had tried on the iPad couldn’t keep up with the elegance and powerful engine of Safari. I still stand by that statement: 3rd party developers are not Apple and I’m pretty sure Safari has got some exclusive features buried deep down in the code engine (such as memory management) which 3rd party devs have not access to.
What’s great now is that I found an alternative that doesn’t suck. Actually, it’s a beautiful, powerful and feature-rich app for iPad called Grazing that has been sitting on my homescreen for a week now. Grazing is now my favorite alternative browser for iPad. Read more
There were rumors and speculations about Apple looking to release a smaller, thinner iPad “mini” by this holiday season, but according to the latest Digitimes report the folks at Cupertino have started sourcing parts of the second gen iPad - which is set to come out in the first quarter of 2011, exactly one year after the first-gen iPad. Read more
According to the International Gamers Survey 2010, iOS has nearly surpassed the Nintendo DS as the most popular gaming platform in the U.S. This is interesting news, especially considering that iOS already surpassed Sony’s PSP, which is used regularly by 18 million Americans. Sorry, Marcus. Read more
Office would be great, especially for enterprise. I have the feeling it’ll be some Bing stuff, though.
I’ve been thinking about this for some months now: what could be the right way to “multitask” on the iPad? Some say we humans can’t really multitask. For the sake of the argument, let’s just say that we want to argue on whether Apple’s way to switch between paused apps on the iPad could be better or not. I think that, with a few tweaks, iOS 4.2 could bring a deeply different experience from the iPhone on the iPad. Read more
I downloaded iOS 4.2 for iPad yesterday, and I’ve been playing around with it all day. Overall, I think it’s a pretty solid first beta: the apps that were already updated to rely on iOS 4 APIs just work (of course they’re Universal apps such as Pandora, but iPhone apps in mini-mode work as well), the multitasking system works pretty well in spite of less RAM, animations are ok.
Sure, it’s a beta: those animations are choppy sometimes and I needed to manually “kill” some apps in the multitasking tray that were unresponsive or incredibly slow. Audio in the background froze a couple of times; Mail hangs when opening large conversations and Safari flushes open pages more often than usual.
It’s a perfectly acceptable trade-off to have iOS 4 on the tablet. And it’s a first beta. And it’s got wireless printing and AirPlay. I agree with John when he says that, considering the previous nature of the device, iOS 4.2 might turn out to be the best software update of all time.
I have collected some of the features and neat little touches I like most about 4.2 for iPad. I think it’s going to be a great operating system. Read more
