How to Sign Up for 3G Service on the iPad
With March 12th’s launch of the iPad pre-order, Apple has released additional information about the device and its services. 3G models won’t be available until later on in April, but Apple, but they didn’t hesitate to show you how you can sign up fro 3G services. As mentioned at the “Our Latest Creation” event, customer can sign up for wireless data services by way of AT&T without even calling or going into an AT&T Retail Store. Everything is done instantly on the device. AT&T has worked with Apple to provide a breakthrough deal with customers: $14.99 a month for 250MB of data or $29.99 a month fro unlimited usage with no contract, no strings, cancel anytime offer (Now that I am thinking about it, that is a pretty sweet deal…).
Penguin Books Shows the Possibilities on the iPad
Penguin Books CEO John Makinson gave a glimpse into the future of what the possibilities are on the iPad, showcasing a number of ideas for highly interactive content in eBooks. John displays number of content from children’s readings to medical textbooks to highly interactive star constellations maps, which by the way is some intuitive and fun stuff. He demonstrates how children can interact with their readings on the iPad by performing certain functions that enable the story to progress such as changing the picture in story by shaking the iPad, pinching and swiping gestures to interact with certain aspects of the content provided, even allowing the user to color the image of the story how they imagine it.
Apple on a “Seek and Extinguish” Mission for All the “Cookie Cutter” Apps
I don’t blame them! Seems like Apple is cracking down on some of the applications on the App Store that…really…serve no purpose as a native app (which I won’t hesitate to mention some, and they are from major groups), by which much of the function of those apps can be overachieved as a web-app. According to TechCrunch and the recent reports they have been receiving from devs, they have been putting the pieces together and coming up with the concurrence that Apple doesn’t mind the companies that appear to be “app generators”, so to speak, however, they don’t want people downloading applications that a basic web-app could more than suffice for.
Magic Trackpad?
The great folks over at Patently Apple chime in that the USPTO (that’s United States Patent and Trademark Office for those of you who aren’t good with acronyms) publicized an application for a trademark that was filed earlier in the week by none other than Apple. The trademark that was trying to be granted: “Magic Trackpad”. Follwing the rest of the file, Apple requested registration for the name in several International Class 009 categories relating to a bunch of computer stuff, including several peripheral devices.
iPhone’s Camera Could Be Doing More Than Just Capture Videos and Photos…
“What could Apple possibly do with the camera other than take photos and videos?” is the question your are probably asking right? Well get this, according to a patent found this week, Apple is investigating ways to provide gesture-invoked functions to the camera on the iPhone such as swiping your finger across the tech to fast-forward and rewind voice memos and messages (which would be pretty damn innovative). They are even figuring out ways for the accelerometer in the iPhone to be used without taking it away from your ear, such as allowing the accelerometer to detect certain distinctive taps so that the user could switch between call session or even merge two calls.
Accessory Makers Setting Up Shop For iPad Release
The WSJ took a glance at what all the accessory makers for Apple’s creations are doing to prep for the big “A’s” latest spawn: The iPad. According to the report, many of them are taking a bunch of routes to set up shop for this thing in all different directions. Some are pushing production as fast as they can to have stuff laid out for the masses when the iPad comes home. Some are also waiting to see what the public wishes they could do with the iPad before they even start heading to the drawing board.
Condé Nast gearing for iPad, But Is Caught in the Adobe vs. Apple Flash Fire
Condé Nast, who some of you may not know is the producer of the prominent and popular publications such as GQ, Wired, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Glamour, said they will produce their materials for the iPad when it comes, but not forgetting to stress that not all of their material will be getting the same treatment because of the firefight between Apple and Adobe on the matter of the future of the Flash plug-in technology. Reading what the New York Times found out about the matter, Condé should have material ready for Apple’s latest lovechild by April, rolling out GQ on the device, followed by Vanity Fair and Wired in June and The New Yorker and Glamour sometime in the summer.
Apple Adding a “Explicit” Category in the App Store?
Well, if you haven’t heard already, Apple recently added a new category to the App Store labeled as “explicit”…and then…took it down. It seems as though Apple created the “explicit” category in the App Store to house some of the content of its massive early spring cleaning of applications (some 5,000+ apps!) that were determined by the App Store rating team as “overtly sexual” due to some complaints made by some people who apparently found the content objectionable (which most of the stuff was pretty subtle, but hey, I’m one person…) and some parents who were concerned about the content being looked at by the younger people of the world (which is understandable, but that’s why there’s parental controls on the iPhone.
Opinion: Idiot Genius?
One of the most interesting features of iTunes is its Genius feature. Starting with music, and since its inception expanding to video and iPhone applications, it takes a song, or the contents of your library, and suggests other things that you might like, in the form of Genius Mixes, or recommended buys. In a recent upgrade to the application, Genius even creates “radio stations” of your music, grouping similar songs together for uninterrupted, flowing listening. This, for me at least, works great. However, every now and then, something comes up that makes me question how smart my Genius really is.
iterum2 Review: Simple Internet Radio
There are a lot of internet radio applications in the app store but iterum2, a new application from Steamtown Media, is a simple internet radio application for the iPod Touch and iPhone. iterum2 includes a list of about 50 radio stations sorted by genre, with more stations being added in updates.
When you start up iterum2 your last used radio station with automatically load, so you can quickly start listening to music. While you are listening to music, you can view the artist and title of the current track along with album artwork. You can also read the lyrics for the song. Oh the side of the screen you can tap buttons to buy the song, search for the song online, or share the song in an email or in a tweet on Twitter. You can add stations to a list of favorites to easily access them.
