iPad

The right reason to build an app

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Kyle Baxter on why he made Basil:

Simple: I love to cook, but couldn’t find the app I wanted, so I built it.

To me this is the perfect reason to build an app. You love to do something, but can’t find the perfect app to do it.

Oh RIM, you morons

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Remember back in the day (last week) when RIM’s Vice President of Developer Relations Alec Saunders said the company was removing sideloading from the PlayBook.

Surprise, no they’re not.

Learn Guitar from iBookstore

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If you’ve ever wanted to learn how to play the guitar but didn’t know where to start and don’t want to spend a lot of money on private lessons, this is the book for you!Follow along with our guitar expert Jen Trani—a guitar instructor who’s been playing since she was 13—as she leads you through 20 video lessons! With interactive diagrams and quizzes, this beginner guitar course will get you acquainted with the basics so you can start rockin’ out today!

If you can play your guitar on the iPhone and iPad, it makes sense that you should be able to learn how to play to.

Chasing 4G

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Chris Armstrong:

There’s been a lot of concern raised recently about Apple’s use of the term “4G” to describe the cellular connectivity in the new iPad. There seems to be some confusion. I decided I’d try to make sense of it.

The difference between 7-inch and 7.85-inch is everything

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Odi Kosmatos:

Here’s why I think there will be a tablet from Apple that’s optimized for reading and has a 7″ retina display that runs iPhone apps unmodified, not a tablet with a 7.85″ display that runs iPad apps unmodified.

The next wave of iOS apps

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Erica Ogg for GigaOM:

Snapguide and Paper have two things in common. Both appeal to the creative side of mobile users, and both are themselves beautifully made and deceptively simple to use.I think it’s these qualities that are going to provide a roadmap for more iOS apps to come that will appeal to the artsy, creative side of people, rather than the traditional consumption-oriented theme of what have so far been the most popular types of apps on Apple’s platform.

Absolutely right. We’ve gone through several of these waves of apps from productivity to games and every time developers start to push the envelope of what can be done, we get another one. Creativity looks to be the wave.

BlackBook: Server based contact management

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BlackBook is your new company-wide address book. All users in your company can access these contacts, allowing for an easier flow of information between employees. From the BlackBook Server, you can control who can read contact information, edit contacts, and export/share contacts. And each user can set categories for easy sorting by contact type.

The company says with its built-in cardDAV server, you can get the contacts on your iOS device too.

Put the universe on your iPad

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MSNBC:

None of us living today will ever get beyond our celestial backyard in real life, but there’s a fleet of apps out there that can blast you through hyperspace to explore — and understand — the far frontiers of the cosmos on your tablet computer. The latest app is “The Wonders of the Universe,” a multimedia spin-off of physicist Brian Cox’s coffee-table book and TV documentary series of the same name.The app, sold by Harper Collins for the iPad 2 and the new iPad, organizes more than 200 interactive articles, two and a half hours of video and hundreds of graphics to do a show-and-tell that ranges from subatomic quarks to the largest scales of the cosmic web.

The article also mentions and has video of four other space-themed apps for the iPad: The Night Sky, Solar System for iPad, Solar Walk and my personal favorite, Star Walk.

Android depends on iOS apps and developers

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I don’t know what happened here. But I can state the facts. As much as it hurts for Android loyals, they depend on iOS first apps. And that’s a shame.

Apple has been leading the way in hardware and software innovation for the past five years. It’s not too much of a surprise that developers try their apps on iOS first.

AirPrint

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Shawn Blanc:

If you don’t own an AirPrint-enabled printer, yet you want to print from your iPhone or iPad, you will need to install a 3rd-party app. But, which one? I found that with certain 3rd-party apps you get additional functionality and benefits beyond just being able to print from your iPhone.

RIM launches software to accommodate Apple users

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Research In Motion on Tuesday launched software that enables its large “enterprise” customers to manage Apple and other rival devices through the same servers as they use for the BlackBerry smartphone and Playbook tablet.

Translation: You win.

Oh balls

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Matt Burns and his article “It’s Time To Believe In RIM And The BlackBerry Again”:

RIM is beaten and laying on the floor. Together, Apple and Google knocked out the champ. Since then, they’ve started fighting each other, seemingly ignoring RIM as regains his strength. He might take another blow from time to time, but with a renewed focus he should stay on his feet from here on out. After years of savage beatings, he’s like the honey badger now and just doesn’t care.

At best, this article is misguided.

British MPs may get iPads

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BBC News:

Announcing its recommendation, Sir Alan Haselhurst, chairman of the committee, said the trial had cut MPs’ costs by “several thousand pounds” as they could circulate information electronically rather than in hard copy.

Apple turns technology into art

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Ben Bajarin:

They create objects of desire and out of that focus comes a visually and easy to use user experience paradigm that drives emotional responses in consumers of their products.

Great way to put it. Apple products, like few others, elicit a response from its users. It’s not just the design or the interface, it’s the whole package.

Almost 50% of U.S. mobile subscribers have smartphones

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Overall, Android continues to lead the smartphone market in the U.S., with 48 percent of smartphone owners saying they owned an Android OS device. Nearly a third (32.1%) of smartphone users have an Apple iPhone, and Blackberry owners represented another 11.6 percent of the smartphone market. Among recent acquirers who got their smartphone within the last three months, 48 percent of those surveyed in February said they chose an Android and 43 percent bought an iPhone.

An iPad firestorm about nothing

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Apple’s newest iPad hit the market three weeks ago and already their have been a number of controversies surrounding the device. As expected, all of the issues fizzled out because there was really nothing there in the first place.

My latest column on Techpinions.

Samsung ships 5 million Galaxy Notes, but who cares about ‘shipped’ numbers

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Macworld:

Samsung Electronics has shipped 5 million units of its “smart notepad”, the Galaxy Note, surpassing most expectations, according to analysts.

How can shipping 5 million units possible surpass anyone’s expectations? That is not the number of Galaxy Notes sold, that’s just the number that Samsung managed to get out of its factory.

Samsung could ship 100 million Galaxy Notes and have them sit in a warehouse somewhere — that doesn’t mean they sold 100 million. I’m never impressed with shipped numbers because they don’t mean anything.

The iPad for Photographers eBook

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Very nice eBook written by my friend Jeff Carlson: Apple’s popular iPad tablet is an incredibly useful tool for photographers on the go. Instead of hauling a laptop on the road or to a photo shoot, you can tuck the … Continued

I’ll be speaking at the Úll iOS/OS X conference in Ireland this April

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I’m excited to tell you that I have accepted an invitation to speak at the Úll Conference in Dublin, Ireland next month.

Úll is a conference for iOS / OSX / mobile web developers and designers. The three day event will include workshops, keynotes, talks and in-depth presentations on all the aspects of building, designing and marketing your apps.

I’ll be joining a nice line-up of speakers including Michael Lopp, Horace Dediu and Matt Gemmell, among others.

iPhoto + iPad + DSLR

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Abdel Ibrahim: Since Apple’s first iPad came on the scene in 2010, people have wondered if tablets could stand in for computers. Few would argue they’re not up to casual tasks like Web browsing and emailing, but what about the … Continued

Complaints over iPad 4G marketing in Europe

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Eric Slivka for Mac Rumors:

Concerns over the 4G marketing are now getting the attention of regulators in several European countries as well.

This is starting to snowball.

Úll iOS/OS X conference in Dublin, Ireland

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Úll is a conference for iOS / OSX / mobile web developers and designers. The three day event will include workshops, keynotes, talks and in-depth presentations on all the aspects of building, designing and marketing your apps.

The conference takes place April 27–29, 2012 and there are still tickets available — I’m looking at making the trip myself. They also have a great list of speakers that includes Michael Lopp, Horace Dediu, Matt Gemmell, and others.