Facebook for iPad released! Sort of

Jul 282011
 

The iPad has come a long way from it’s origin, an oversized iPod touch. Even the naysayers, predicting that this tablet was Apple’s downfall have quietly submitted to Steve Job’s will, starting to review iPad related gadgets, such as portable speakers, cases, and so on. Even Mark Zuckerberg has been converted, if these screens above are true. His comments that the iPad wasn’t connected enough to justify a Facebook app seem to have been redacted, with Facebook for iPad looming around the corner.

From data extracted in the iPhone app, it seems that the groundwork has already been laid for a update to come shortly. The interface has changed drastically, from the stale, iPhone inspired interface, with the four underlying interfaces. The iPad app features a side bar, rather than the group of icons underneath. Accessing different parts of Facebook can be done with a touch of a button, or with a flick of one’s wrist. Flipping the iPad horizontally results in Facebook chat activating, and enabling you to communicate with them easily. The photo section has become 150% more stalkerish, with the photo interface resembling the iPad’s own photo viewer.

Facebook is also updating the iPhone app, with the latest incarnation bringing back the ‘send’ button, after unintelligent people probably posted some things they shouldn’t have… ‘accidentally’. Skype for the iPad app hasn’t been commented on yet, perhaps that will be yet another ace that Mike Zuckerberg holds in his sleeve. Most of the coding is done in HTML 5, a small nod towards Steve Jobs, a proponent of the whole ‘HTML 5′ thing.

At the moment, you can have Facebook for iPad now, all you need is a jailbroken iPad, and to find a guide on how to do it, obviously. To find a guide on how to use Facebook for iPad, there’s a guide here.

Death of the MP3 Player?

Jul 172011
 

 

October 2001- A glossy, shiny, rectangular box, featuring a 1.8″ Toshiba Hard drive, a circular wheel, and a small screen. Hardly remarkable compared to today’s touchscreen almost-as-smart-as-Skynet phones. But to the world at the time, the ‘iPod’ as it was called by Apple, was a revolutionary development in consumer electronic technology. Instead of carrying along bulky CD’s or cassettes, one could transfer songs from a personal computer, in a much more portable format too.

With Apple’s huge success through it’s inventive marketing schemes, and innovative improvements to the iPod lineup, MP3 players moved from strength to strength, until it’s waxen wings began to melt. Of course, as technology improved, more companies realized that there was more than enough capacity and processing power to simply run a few audio files on their phones/tablets, etc. With the first generation iPhone’s release, MP3 player sales peaked at around 22.7 million in late 2008.

Despite Apple’s commanding market share in the MP3 player market, selling seven out of ten MP3 players purchased, it seems that the rest of the world is beginning to realize the redundancy in purpose-built MP3 players. Smartphones can also play music, while still retaining the same level of portability. With other Apple products such as the iPod classic not having access to the Apple Store, sales for the device are dropping rapidly, with rumors surfacing that Apple is planning to drop the product.

At the end of this tale, Apple still remains as profitable as always, having a stranglehold over the tablet and smartphone markets. Considering that the iPhone 5 seems likely to be released this September, perhaps Apple should hold a small ceremony for the device that changed the shunned tech company, into a titan large enough to challenge the once unstoppable Microsoft.

 

Google+ iOS Edition

Jul 072011
 

Ever since Facebook became a deca-billion dollar construct, spawning companies which are worth billions of dollars in their own right (Zynga), there have been many attempts to dethrone this almighty social networking juggernaut. As we all know by now, Google+ is the Californian based company’s social network foray into the basically monopolized market. I’m not going into specifics here, but it basically looks like… Facebook, except, it’s not Facebook.

That’s not the point though. Currently, Google has just posted a Google+ application to the app store. It’s pending approval currently, while no approval process was necessary for the Android marketplace, for obvious reasons. Other information confirmed by Google, is that the application is not only for iPhones, iPod and iPad users can rejoice that they haven’t been forgotten by the search engine superpower.

Google is also releasing an Application Programming Interface for Google+, which will allow developers to create applications for Google+. Allowing software to interact with the service, as well as people, this API will certainly provide a greater amount of flexibility for users to exploit.

A couple of screenshots exhibit the features of Google+, including the much touted ‘Circles’ feature, where you can direct messages, and view messages only from particular social groups. There is also integration with Gmail, and GoogleTalk- perhaps a nice selling point about the social network in general.

In other news, remember that old site Myspace? The decaying site was just sold by its parent company for $35 million, a pittance compared to what it was originally worth. Even online newshub, ‘Huffington Post’ was sold for much much more. It serves as a reminder that perhaps, even Facebook might lose its grip on the Social Networking market.

Check out Google+ here

 

Why there will be no iPad 3 in 2011

Jun 222011
 

It hasn’t even been half a year since Apple released the iPad 2. Already, rumors of a possible iPad 3 sometime down the track this year are beginning to circulate.

A few analysts believe that we’ll see a new iPad sometime in September this year. Rumored features include a high resolution screen (possibly 2048×1536 and AMOLED?) and a better processor.

One thing I’m sure of is that there will be no iPad 3 in 2011. It just doesn’t make sense for Apple to introduce an iPad 2 replacement after having just launched it a few months ago. Although competitors are constantly releasing newer and more powerful tablets such as the Samsung Galaxy S II, Apple is not a company that plays a game of ‘match the specs’.

John Gruber of Daring Fireball pointed out a while ago that:

…if I’m right that Apple will make a second iPad product announcement later this year, such a thing would be in addition to the imminent iPad 2 — not a replacement. Like when the iPod family expanded to include the iPod Mini — the Minis didn’t replace the existing iPods, they were an expansion of the product family.

John’s speculation does make some sense. Instead of an iPad 2 replacement, Apple may want to expand the iPad family by introducing an addition tablet. However, I think there are two reasons why this won’t happen.

  • Steve Job’s explicitly said that 2011 will be the year of iPad 2 in his keynote. If another iPad was scheduled sometime later this year, he wouldn’t have said this.
  • The release line for Apple this year has already been quite hectic. Put the earlier releases aside, we still have Mac OS X Lion, iCloud, iOS 5, the imminent iPhone 5 and a refresh for the iPod lineup. All of that will happen in the second half of this year. I just don’t think there’s room for the release of another iPad in 2011.

Extending iPhone and iPad Battery Life

May 162011
 

One of the improvements of the iPhone 4 over it’s predecessor, the iPhone 3GS, is a slightly improved battery life. Personally, I’m happy with my iPhone 4′s battery life as I can easily get through the whole day without having to recharge. However for some others, this is not the case. This guide will show you a number of ways in which you can optimize iPhone battery life.

There are a number of factors that can contribute to having a poor battery life. The general tips below is a quick check list of things that may help to extend your battery life.

  • Minimize the use of location services
  • Minimize the use of push notifications
  • Fetch new data less frequently
  • Turn off push email
  • Turn off Wi-Fi when unused
  • Turn off Bluetooth when unused
  • Adjust to a lower brightness:
  • Turn off EQ
  • Turn off 3G when a fast data connection is not required
  • Lock Your iPhone or iPad when unused.
  • Use iPhone or iPad regularly – go through at least one charge cycle per month (from 100% to empty)
  • Do not allow your iPhone or iPad to overheat (avoid long periods of direct sunlight)

Multitasking – Closing Apps on iPad and iPhone

iOS devices with software 4.0+ will have multitasking. Although it’s a very useful feature, it’s also one of the biggest battery consumers. By default, an application automatically continues to run in the background when exited. Unfortunately you can’t change this. Double press the home button and you will see a tray of apps that are currently running in the background (swipe right to see more). To completely close apps, press and hold any app icon. Once the icons start jiggling, tap the red minus icon. The thing with the iPhone and iPad is that there are so many cool and useful apps. Without even knowing it, you will have opened a whole bunch of apps. It’s fine to leave a couple running in the background but when there are too many, your battery life will suffer.

Jailbreaking iPad or iPhone

Jailbreaking your iPhone or iPad may also contribute to a poor battery life. The fact that the device itself is jailbroken isn’t really the cause. But when an iPhone or iPad is jailbroken, users tend to install a whole bunch of modifications and utilities from Cydia. It is these extras that drain down the battery.

Monitoring and Usage Statistics

There a number of ways in which you can monitor your iPhone or iPad’s battery life and usage. By default, the iOS shows you only a few statistics such as usage time, call time and  cellular network data usage (to see this, tap the Settings icon on the Home screen and choosing General > Usage). However, there are numerous of apps in the iTunes Apps Store that shows you more information (battery health, how much battery left for varies activities, maximizing your battery life tips. etc)

A few notable paid ones include:

A few notable free ones include:

iPad and iPad 2 Not Charging via USB

Apr 242011
 

A lot of iPad owners including me, get the message  on iPad Not Charging  when plugged in via USB port on PC. I tried to charge my iPad 2 via USB because I was lazy to find the wall plug and that is the first time I encountered that  message above.

My iPad 2 Not Charging Images:

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After 20 minutes of online research, I found out that the problem is not the iPads , its actually USB port on PC because it is not providing enough power for iPad to be charged. Apple actually confirmed this problem and suggest that we all use USB 10W power adapter that came with iPad .

I guess ill stop being lazy, and get that power adapter to charge my iPad, the only annoying part is that I sometimes spend hours on pc and constantly transfer some stuff from iPad to PC, and that stupid message iPad 2 not charging is really annoying, don’t you think?

On few websites, I read that this issue with iPad showing “Not Charging” while plugged in via USB has something to do with Operating System. First of all lets be clear, OS has nothing to do with how power is distributed to USB, so don’t fall for those rumors. It really does not matter what you OS you are using, also don’t feel bad if some say that your PC is old. My pc is 4 months old with latest stuff in it, and sometimes manufacturers don’t really count on you to plugin a device via USB to PC that requires lots of power wattage.

So what is the easiest way to fix iPad Not Charging icon?

Get the power adapter Smile that was supplied to you when you got iPad.

I Wrote This Article with Blogsy App

Apr 232011
 

Just few days ago I was looking for application that will allow me to write articles via my iPad which supports wordpress. First app that popped up on iTunes app store was WordPress, so I downloaded and installed it on my iPad. At first I was happy but few minutes later when I went more into details as to what WordPress app for iPad can do, it was really disappointing to be honest.

I moved on to few different apps and spent $6 for apps that do almost same as the free wordpress app, until I stumbled upon on app called Blogsy I first of all fell in love with description what app can do, but I was bit skeptical about it whether Blogsyapp can really do what it says, I mean I already spent $6 and Blogsyapp is $2.99. Is it worth it?

Well if it wouldn’t be worth spending another $2.99, I would not call the title of this article “I wrote this article with Blogsy”!

First of all this is my 4th article writing with Blogsy and I apsolutelly love it, I really wish I could download this same app on Android, but unfortunately it’s only for iPad as of right now.

So what can you do with Blogsy?

  • As you can see above I was able to format the text above with h3 HTML tag
  • I added two links, one by highlighting the word and click link, and second one I added by simply dragging the link from the built in browser that Blogsy suppot.
  • As you can see here I was able to make bullet points, numbers are supported too.
  • In pictures above you can see that you are able to embed pictures, and you can resize them too.

Blogsy has lots of features and to be honest, I can say that it is the best wordpress and blogger app you will find on App Store. If you really want to explore what other features are available on Blogsy please visit the link above I shared, there is lots of videos pictures and tutorials.

Pix I took:

“Pimp Your Screen” App Review

Apr 182011
 

Have you ever wanted to change up or “pimp” your home screen without having to jailbreak your iDevice? Well now you can with an app called “Pimp Your Screen” by Apalon.

What is Pimp Your Screen?

Pimp Your Screen is basically just an app that lets you customize the way your iPhone, iPod, or iPad looks. This includes App Shelves, Neon Combos, Home Screens, Icon Skins, and even a Lock Screen Maker.

Review

When you open the app you are shown four tabs which I have listed above.

The first tab, App Shelves are basically just customized backgrounds. There are many types of App Shelves given, here are two of them:

Neon Combos includes a lot of really cool wallpapers with many colors and designs that would give your iPhone that outstanding effect its always needed.

Home Screens are also a lot of wallpapers that give your iPhone some extra coolness. Many of the wallpapers adapt very well with the Retina Display giving it an HD effect.Icon Skins are personally my favorite. They give you many choices to what types of icon skins you want, and it blends in perfectly with the all of your downloaded apps.

Last but certainly not least is the Lock Screen Maker. It gives you the ability to change not only the screensaver but also the the color of the top and bottom bars that show the current time and the “slide to unlock.”

Overall, I think Pimp Your Screen (iTunes Link) $0.99 app would be a great buy for anyone looking to jazz up their iPhone and give it some extra color. This is what my iPhone looks like after the addition of Pimp Your Screen:

Let us know what you guys did after you bought the app and comment!

PushMail (Giveaway): Fastest Mail notification App for iDevices

Apr 072011
 

Are you email junky like me? I get emails like crazy whether that is regarding MWD, personal emails or work emails. Today we are giving away 9 PushMail redeem codes for those that tweet this article.

What is PushMail?

Well it’s a application for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch that notifies you within 1 second that email has arrived in your inbox.

How does PushMail Work?

Basically, you forward your emails to YourUsername@dopushmail.com and you start receiving emails within second, its pretty much same system like SMS just that this way you get notified very fast.

I think PushMail is good almost for everyone that depends on email especially who depends on customers that need immediate response. What I like about Pushmail is that I can setup multiple emails to be sent and color the tabs.

So that’s pretty much it, straight forward,eh?

Price: $4.99 and WELL worth it! (iTunes Link)

Has almost 5 star rating by thousand’s of reviewers.

Oh, the giveaway!

To win redeem code all you really need to do is tweet this article, and you are in the drawing for final winner. Come on guys! You get to download $4.99 app for free, not many tech blogs do that Smile

I will pick a winner by tomorrow night (Friday) and will tell you if you won, via my twitter account (@JoeHobot) with over 52K followers. If you win, can you please stop by and let us know what you think about the app?

Remote from your iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch via VNC to any Operating System (+Giveaway)

Apr 042011
 

As a tech guy who has been in tech industry for over a decade now, I am always in  different places doing some sort of web-development and most of my time I spend remoting into my servers whether that is from home or some other place.

Now that technology has advanced, I can remote to my web servers and home pc’s straight from iPad 2 and iPhone 4 which I recently got for birthday (April 1st!). Today I would like to introduce you to one of the best remote applications for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch basically any iDevice that runs on iOS 3+  and that app name is Remoter.

I downloaded bunch of remote apps for my iPad 2 and waisted my money so to say, but with Remoter everything paid it self off.

Remoter (Remoter: Remote Desktop VNC – iTunes Link) application allows you to remote into ANY operating system that has VNC (I use TightVNC) or SSH.

With SSH (I am more of a linux guy) you can do pretty much everything you would do on any linux machine, it gives you all the controls that you could possibly use as you would be upfront of that PC.

Same thing goes with Windows and OS X , as I said above you can remote to any operating system, and use it just like you would use it when you are upfront of that computer.

About the GIVEAWAY:

Since I have been using Remoter for two weeks, I contacted developers and gave great feedback on what amazing application they built, in return I have been given redeem codes that will allow winners to install remoter for free. Current price on remoter is 99c which is cheap considering that other applications run for $10-$20!

To win free redeem code, all you really need to do is tweet this article , and the winner will be chosen randomly. We have 3 codes to giveaway, so your chances to win this are really high. I will chose the winner tomorrow after 5PM (CST)

Some snapshots I took of my demo servers with remoter (there is still stuff to read under pix):

IMG_0009IMG_0010IMG_0011IMG_0012IMG_0013IMG_0014

 

Now that I got your attention, I would like to say that with this tool you can , type, move mouse, right and left click, view it full screen on iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.

Anyway, hope you are going to win this cool remote desktop application , so tweet this and stop by tomorrow, winners will be announced via Twitter (52.000 followers) and in commenting section below.

UPDATE: Winners are @dreamartist @dolton @suhastech

Gmail for iPad Apps suck. Gmail.com is best

Apr 022011
 

I just got an iPad 2 for my birthday and first thing I did is setup my mail. I get bunch of emails every day and out of 100-200 per day I delete probably 20% of them. See the thing is that with original iPad mail app you can delete, archive emails and things like that. But to mark them as read even if you didn’t open email, oh well that option does not exist.

So I went to app store and downloaded bunch of gmail apps for iPad but no app really had an option to select and mark emails as read. I went to gmail.com With my iPad and to be honest it’s the best way to check and manage gmail account. What I love the most is that I can actually make gmail.com as app by simply clicking on bookmark button and add it to home screen (sorry no images today, am writhing this article via iPad for the first time, and I am not happy with it at all.

Anyway, I just wanted to share tht sometimes mobile paged are way better than an actual iDevice apps. Try it.

If you have tablet, which app do you use for to check on your gmail account?

iPad 2 Review What I Liked and Hate About

Mar 192011
 

So I got the iPad 2 for review and I must say that so far it has been useful for many things I do online. Still the question is if iPad is a device that somebody really needs it.

The new iPad 2 release date was last week March 11th and within one day according to few sources it was already sold out, those that pre-ordered iPad 2 some of them are still waiting for it.

So let’s go into iPad 2 detail review.

iPad 2 is a lot lighter than original iPad and it is thinner. New things that are worth mentioning in iPad 2 are the Front and Back facing camera, iPad 2 also has A5 chip which is the dual core processor and makes the iPad 2 blast the performance even under heavy usage.

Things I liked about iPad 2:

  • Skype – I was still able to use Skype with video conferencing, sure the app is not made for iPad but if you hit the X2 button to increase the size of the app, makes it look like its made for iPad.
  • Netflix – I watch movies whenever I can, and now that iPad 2 is a lot lighter than iPad I must say that I enjoy watching movies even more.
  • Front and Back Facing camera – I like that iPad 2 has cameras, but I am not so sure if I would use it for taking pictures but for video is ok.
  • Dual Core – Speedwise I have not notice BIG difference between iPad and iPad 2 even if its powered with dual core. Response time by switching between the apps that’s where I noticed the performance otherwise for those that had iPad and iPad 2 now I can tell you right away that you will not notice big difference.
  • Battery life? AWESOME! I played Infinity Blade for 3 hours, been on skype for 20 minutes and browse net for an hour. After all that I still had 53% of battery left!
  • Price is right: $499+ for Wi-Fi (16gb) version and iPad 2 with WIfi + 3G is starting at $629

What I hate about iPad 2:

  • Taking pictures in low light areas is almost impossible, there is a lot of pixilation and blurriness, and pictures don’t come out good.
  • There is only one speaker and I wish there would be two on each side, like Motorola Xoom has.
  • Browsing websites is bit slow but on Wi-Fi is still ok, but then comparing it to Motorola XOOM, Safari is slow either way.

Here are some screenshot pictures of Blade Infinity game (Click to Maximize)

photo 2photo 3photo 1

For detailed technical specifications on iPad 2 please do visit Apple Website.

Here are some pictures I took of iPad 2 I have.

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Well that is for now, hope you like the short iPad 2 review and don’t hesitate to leave comment in the section below.

March Madness App Watch Live on iPhone iPad or iPod Touch

Mar 122011
 

March Madness is here and you can watch it live on your iPhone ipad or iPod Touch with simple app called NCAA March Madness On Demand. March Maddness App lets you view scores, watch videos and a lot more.

What I like about March Madness App for my iPhone and iPad is that the application is free, can’t get any better than that,eh?

march madness on ipad

To get this app just start searching on your Apple Store for NCAA March Madness or here is the download link in case it happens that you are viewing this post via iPad or iPhone.

Exclusive: Verizon Drops Prices on iPad, Motorola XOOM and Samsung Galaxy Tab

Mar 112011
 

Not sure if this is exclusive but I got tip that Verizon as of right now will drop prices on iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab. iPad2 and Motorola XOOM activation fee will be waved.

Effective right now Motorola XOOM, Samsung Galaxy Tab and iPad activation fee will be waved by Verizon with MiFi Bundle (Month-to-Month prepay,) , but don’t forget that you can buy those tablets without the contract at full retail price. Also to note that this offer will be for Limited time only.

Shopping Cart_1299886821546 

All the tablets iPad , Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy tab will come with Verizon Bill which is called Postpay. Meaning that, you can pay Verizon directly.

If you pay iPad2 via debit or credit card on month-to-month prepay , there is no activation fee and you can self-activate the data plan without calling Verizon etc..

iPad original price was reduced as we seen on Apple site too, so here it goes:

iPad WiFi

  • 16GB $399
  • 32GB $499
  • 64GB $599

iPad Bundled with Mifi

  • 16GB $529
  • 32GB $629
  • 64GB $729

Best of All?

Samsung Galaxy Tab will be sold for only $200!!!! on two year contract and that is $100 off the price as well!

Samsung Galaxy Tab™_1299886921952

Wait! There is more news!

Motorola XOOM gets upgrade! just go to  http://www.verizonwireless.com/xoomsupport and follow the steps :)

Flipboard for iPhone just called Smartr

Feb 222011
 

When I first downloaded Flipboard for iPad I was amazed with what all things I can do, well now that I have an iPhone (verizon) there is no Flipboard app for it. So after digging through App Store I found something very similar to Flipboard app and it’s called Smartr.

Smartr (iTunes Link) Features I personally like:

  • removes junk tweets like 4Square check-ins
  • lets you read tweets or links later and share them via many social networks
  • ability to add multiple accounts and read multiple twitter lists

Smartr (Website) Features (not all):

  • Removes 4sq checkins
  • Shows page previews instead of links
  • Formats article for maximum readability on iPhone
  • Full list support (view, create & follow lists, add/remove members)
  • Save articles for later reading
  • Reply, retweet, repost or favorite articles on twitter.
  • Multiple twitter account support
  • Save articles to Instapaper or ReadItLater
  • Publish articles to posterous, tumblr or facebook
  • Email articles to your friends
  • Save your bookmarks on the web

photo 3 (4) photo 3.PNGmwd  photo 3 (2) photo 3 (3) photo 3 (1)

Since I got Smartr app I don’t need any news aggregating app on my iPhone, all I really have to do is create list on twitter add 20-30 twitter handles like @engadget, @orli, @problogger etc.. After I add them to twitter list all their tweets with links are readable and If I am interested I can read the full article. Flipboard does same thing is just that Flipboard has bit more features like adding Facebook status, email etc..

I was lucky enough to get this app while it was free, now the app cost $2.99 and personally I think its worth the money. I will ask the developer to share few redeem codes with us so we can share with you this week.

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