The iPad

With Apple's press conference this morning I was extremely excited to wake up. Unfortunately I had to go to school, but right when I got home I jumped on my computer and checked Apples website. The headline caught my eye as it wasn't what i though it would be called. The rumours had it being called the ISlate, and i knew that there was a good chance that that wouldn't be its name. I still thought that it would be, but now that I think about it, the name IPad has a good ring.

The specs for the device are almost right on with what most people were guessing. It has a 9.7 inch LED touch screen. That is 1024 by 768 resolution at 123 pixels per inch. It is running off of a 1 gigahertz processor made by Apple. It has a height of 9.56 inches, a width of 7.47 inches, a depth of .5 inches, and a weight of 1.5 pounds for the wifi model but on the wifi and 3G model it is 1.6 pounds. It comes in six different models. Some people may find this strange but stilllike it because it provides a model for every one. There are three different sizes: 16 gig, 32 gig, and 64 gig. The other three models are those same sizes but come with an AT&T 3G plan. Apple is saying that you can get up to 10 hours of battery life. This would be great, but will you really get these 10 hours? No one can tell you that right now, although if you go to the bottom of the IPad's page you will find this: "Testing conducted by Apple in January 2010 using preproduction iPad units and software. Testing consisted of full battery discharge while performing each of the following tasks: video playback, audio playback, and Internet browsing using Wi-Fi. Video content was a repeated 2-hour 23-minute movie purchased from the iTunes Store. Audio content was a playlist of 358 unique songs, consisting of a combination of songs imported from CDs using iTunes (128-Kbps AAC encoding) and songs purchased from the iTunes Store (256-Kbps AAC encoding). Internet over Wi-Fi tests were conducted using a closed network and dedicated web and mail servers, browsing snapshot versions of 20 popular web pages, and receiving mail once an hour. All settings were default except: Wi-Fi was associated with a network; the Wi-Fifeature Ask to Join Networks and Auto-Brightness were turned off. Battery life depends on device settings, usage, and many other factors. Battery tests are conducted using specific iPad units; actual results may vary." The ports on the IPad include dock connector, 3.5 millimeter headphone jack, built in speakers, built in mic, and on the 3G models a SIM card slot. Some people mayask where you charge this device this is now power jack. To charge it, you have to use an IPod cable (really called a 30 pin cable)to usb. This means that you have to use a computer or one of the many usb to wall/computer converters. The IPad also has bluetooth, this means that with IPaddock you can have your device act like a monitor screen and use a wireless Apple keyboard to type. Those are the specs for the IPad.

 Apple already has a line up of accessories ready for the device's launch in 60 days (90 days for the 3G model). There are just a few of them right now but we know that soon there will be many more. The first one is a case foriPad, it not only protects the pad but can put it in different positions for easy use. Another accessory is the 6 foot power cord. This power cord lets you plug your device directly into a wall outlet. The third accessory is the IPad dock. The IPad dock lets you plug the IPad into the wall, into your computer, a powered speaker set, and it lets you use the other cool accessories. The last accessory that is out right now is called the IPad Camera Connection Kit. This lets you either plug the usb cable from the camera directly into you IPad of the other version lets you take the SD card out and put it in and transfer your pictures to the IPad that way. Those are the four accessories out right now.

Also, along with the App Store and ITunes store, this device will have a new store that will be just for books. The App will be called IBook. In this app you will have a bookcase-like look that shelves all the books that you have bought and downloaded to your device. Then there will be a button that you can click that will move you to the book store where you can buy the book. This will all happen in the same app so you don't have to go all over to buy a book then read the book. The other big released apps are the IWork apps. IWork is Apple's version of Microsoft Office. These apps will sell for around 10 dollars for each of the different programs. These are designed to work with multi- touch and everything else on the IPad. The next question that some people may be wondering is if they will be able to play all the othergames that I have on my IPhone or ITouch.Well the answer is yes. The new SDK was released so that developers can design apps just for the IPad. This means that they will be taking full use of the processor and the size of the touch screen. The IPad is running a beefed up version of IPhone OS. This means that all the pre-made apps are on it. They have all been changed for the better and made more to feel like you're really on a mac. Just by looking at pictures and the video that was released I can tell that there are really nice changes.

Now for the Prices:

16 gig: $499

16 gig with 3G: $629

32 gig: $599

32 gig with 3G: $729

64 gig: $699

64 gig with 3G: $829

To learn more about the IPad or find pictures or the video go to:http://www.apple.com/ipad/

Happy Birthday Macintosh!

Today is the 26th birthday of the Apple Macintosh computer. On January, 24, 1984 Steve Jobs unveiled the first Mac. It was the Macintosh 128K. It was the start of the Apple dynasty and Steve Job's glory, and as they say.... the rest is history. The Mac has since then grown, with the Mac Pro, MacBook line, Mac Mini and iMac at the time. Here is a clip of Steve Jobs displaying the Macintosh 128K for the first time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0FtgZNOD44

And myself saying Happy Birthday to the Mac!

Shiny Products on the Way!

We are getting increasingly closer to Apple's release of the iSlate/Tablet/iPad, and rumors are a dime a dozen. This is a quick post; I wrote an in-depth analysis previously.

I think the Slate will have FREE 3G, and will cost around $1000, maybe just under. If Apple doesn't subsidize the device, then I think this is very likely. Amazon's Kindle has this, and would be one of the biggest selling points. However, if Apple DOES subsidize it, I think the Slate will be around $600, and have a $20-30 monthly data plan that permits VOIP, from AT&T and/or Verizon. I think Apple has sorely learned that AT&T is well, AT&T.

Just want to make this a very brief article. If you wish to continue reading, click here.

Review: AppZapper 2

AppZapper, also known as 'The uninstaller Apple forgot', was released a couple of weeks ago. The developers of the software, Austin Sarner and Brian Ball, have worked hard on redesigning some of the UI in the second release and have also added another feature.

One of the major new features of AppZapper is that you can still drag the application you want to uninstall from your Mac into the application and it'll get the related files for that particular application but there is now a finder to find the application you want to get rid off.

Hit the slider in the top right hand corner of AppZapper window and slide it to reveal a new menu. It looks like a iPhone page of applications but the applications featured are ones that run on your Mac. Choose one you want to delete and at the bottom, it shows what components will be deleted along with the application itself.

Simple! I know you can get free or cheaper applications than AppZapper, but at only $13 (£8) you can't get much better value on an application. You can try it for 5 zaps by downloading from the AppZapper website. 

However, you can't zap me from Twitter!

Beak: A Mac Twitter Client

Beak is a Twitter client for the Mac OS X platform. It is a rival to the popular Tweetie, which is available for the Mac along with the iPhone and iPod Touch. Although it is still in beta, Beak is stylish, good at doing its job and keeps you up to date with all of your Twitter notifications.

In comparison to Tweetie, Beak is free and offers similar functionality once logged in. Beak is still in its beta stages, where Tweetie has only one version out for Mac and I'm longing for the next version of Tweetie to be released. 

One function I would like to change in Beak is the time display. Currently it shows the time the tweet was sent and not how long ago it was sent. If you have a Mac and would like to download and try Beak for Mac, the download link can be found here, along with additional information on the client.

Enjoy

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