Guide to Mac, iPod, iPad and iPhone news and reviews
Icons and SymbolsThis week’s roundup of new iPhone cases brings you beautiful 3-D printing, a wavy case inspired by sports, and see-through protection.3DLTThe 3D Printed Diamonds (iPhone 5 and 5s; $31) features a 3-D-printed diamond pattern that covers…
As we know, the iPad has several amazing apps which help you stay productive, have fun and do a variety of other things. One of the things I have been slightly underwhelmed by is third party hardware support. I’m not talking about simple stuff like bluetooth keyboards, rather hardware that attaches your iPad to other […]
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This week’s roundup of new apps includes a celebration of Blue Note, one of the greatest labels in jazz—and music—history. But if that’s too heady for you, we’ve also got Sharknado.
The diamond anniversary of a legendary jazz label is celebrated in the Blue Note 75 iPad app. Immerse yourself in the history of the music: If you have a Spotify, Rdio, or Deezer subscription, the app ties into those accounts to give you album-length dips into the history being described. (Other users can listen to 30-second sound clips and buy albums and singles directly from iTunes.) In addition to timelines, artist catalogues, and more, the app also includes an interactive magazine featuring news and other information about jazz today.
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Every iPad user has that app he or she uses when they have some time to blow. Generally, it’s something that isn’t very constructive. Some entail throwing birds at pigs, while others reading through gigantic amounts of news you’re never going to use. For those of us who want to be more constructive, however, there’s a different […]
My boss recently got our entire team a set of Evernote Moleskine notebooks to enhance our note-taking and info sharing practices. I’m not usually one for carrying paper around because I prefer to keep my notes digital (and therefore searchable), but now that I’m handling larger projects, I’m finding a hybrid system of typed notes […]
The Spigen Compact Car Charger is a featured offer today in iPad Insight Deals. Here’s a little introduction to it and some of its key features: The Kuel Dual Car Charger offers you charging while your on the go. The dual USB ports can charge mobile phones as well as tablets, as long as you […]
If you use iCloud to back up your contacts, you can quickly bring them down to a new iPhone or iPad in a matter of seconds. There have also been reports of contacts mysteriously disappearing completely, which may require you to push them back down from iCloud again. Regardless of the situation, you can restore contacts from your latest iCloud backup in just a few taps.
Keep in mind it may take a few minutes for all your contacts to come down. If you’ve recently had contacts disappearing from your iPhone or iPad that you know you previously had, this could potentially solve the problem. If it doesn’t, you can also try one other fix for disappearing contacts via the link below.
Steve Jobs was fond of saying often that if hardware is the brains of a device, then software is its soul. This statement is true insofar that software is what really makes a device and its ecosystem — one needn’t look any further than iOS to see that — and is what designers, developers, and consumers care about most. In terms of accessibility, the fact that software gets so much (rightful) attention means that one crucial and, I would argue, just as important aspect gets overlooked in the discussion.
The hardware.
Assessing the kinesthetic, tactile value of using an iPhone or iPad is just as important as assessing the software it runs. Speaking from personal experience, not only am I visually impaired but I also suffer from a mild form of cerebral palsy. What this means is, for me, the strength in my hands and fingers are substantially less than that of a fully-abled person. Hence, it takes much more effort to hold things — in this case, my iOS devices — as well as do things on my devices, like typing. Because of this, my approach to buying a new iPhone or iPad depends not only on 64-bit systems-on-a-chip and improved cameras, but also how the device feels in my hands: the weight, width, thinness, etc. As I said, the tactile experience.
A prime example of this is my iPad Air. Before upgrading to it last October, I used an iPad 3 for about a year and a half. My iPad 3 was relatively heavy, thick, and ran hot. My iPad Air is light, thin, and cool to the touch. The differences aren’t insignificant. My physical limitations made it hard to use my iPad 3 for prolonged periods. Fatigue would quickly set in, shortening my time with the device and lessening the overall experience. I feel none of these things using my iPad Air; the heightened experience I having using the device is a testament to just how well a job Apple’s hardware engineering team did at changing the iPad’s form factor. The contrast between iPads old and new is dramatic, and I’m very happy with my Air. (I also prefer the Air over the Retina Mini for the big screen, but that’s immaterial to my points here.)
To the majority of people, that someone would consider how a device feels in the hand to be natural and obvious, and it certainly is to an extent. The point I’m making, however, is that to physically disabled people such as myself, it matters so much more — orders of magnitude more. For those with motor issues, comfort and dexterity could mean the difference between buying or not buying a device. Moreover, my point also illustrates just how diverse and far-reaching of a topic accessibility is. It isn’t about just vision or just hearing. Accessibility is a complex, abstract beast that often involves, as is the case for me, multiple layers of problems in need of solutions.
The moral of this story, I think, is that hardware accessibility is something that needs more consideration when discussing a decice’s overall accessibility — this will be especially important to keep in mind this fall, when Apple unveils their rumored big iPhones. The physical changes are not going to be trivial, particularly to someone like me. Impressive though iOS 8’s new Accessibility features may be, the accessibility of the hardware itself is going to be just as worthy to talk about.
In OS X Mavericks Apple introduced the Reading List in Apple’s Safari web browser. Reading List makes it easier to find content you’d like to read when you get a chance. What’s more, Reading List synchronizes between your iOS and Mac devices, so you c…
On July 29, Apple officially introduced refreshes to the 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display lineup, with slight tweaks under the hood for the new models. Now that they’re available, Other World Computing thought it would be the right thing to do to get them unboxed, test their SSDs, and maybe even show off the internal layout.
PopCap is on a roll with adding more and more updates to the sequel to its popular castle defense game. Drop your seeds and grow poison-spewing plants that knock the medieval zombie king right off his thrown in the Plants vs. Zombies 2’s latest content update, just released this week. Dark Ages Part 2 features […]
Following this morning’s release of Retina MacBook Pros with improved Haswell processors, OWC has procured both the entry-level 13-inch and and the entry-level 15-inch 2014 Retina MacBook Pro and provided a gallery of unboxing photos featuring the new devices.
As expected, the packaging on the updated versions is the same as previous-generation Retina MacBook Pros. The site did a quick teardown as well, revealing the internals of the new machines, which also appear unchanged.
Internal view of the mid-2014 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro
OWC also conducted some speed tests on the solid state drives of the two machines, testing the 128 GB drive of the entry-level 13-inch version and the 256 GB drive of the entry-level 15-inch model using QuickBench 4.0.
The 15-inch machine (equipped with a Samsung SSD) saw random read/write speeds much higher than that of the 13-inch version, averaging in at 194 MB/s for random reads and 322 MB/s for random writes and 262/245 MB/s for sequential read/writes.
The 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, meanwhile, saw average random read/write speeds of 165/131 MB/s and average sequential read/write speeds of 263/244 MB/s with its Marvell-controlled SanDisk SSD.
Launched earlier today, the new Retina MacBook Pros feature upgraded Haswell processors, more standard RAM for entry-level machines (8 GB for the 13-inch model, 16 GB for the 15-inch model) and a $100 price cut for the high-end 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro. The refreshed Retina MacBook Pros are available at Apple retail stores and in its online store.
For the full array of unboxing and teardown images, make sure to check out OWC’s blog post.
At this rate, owning an iDevice might be as essential to being a successful doctor as possessing a degree. Only a day after a British hospital reported that its practice of using iPad and iPods to monitor patents’ health had led to lower mortality rates, a new crowd-funded project has popped up on IndieGogo claiming that Apple’s iPhone might be able to help wipe out malaria on the Indonesian island of Bangka.
The team, known as IanXen, plans to use Bangka as a testing ground of sorts before tackling more ambitious projects over in Africa. The team will use a IanXen RAPID kit that will outfit an iPhone with a portable microscope, a lancet pen, and blood slides, thus allowing them to use the microscope to examine the slides with a microscope and make diagnoses within five seconds. The key attraction of the process is that it’s relatively cheap, and could therefore make more headway in regions ravaged by malaria than conventional equipment.
According to the project’s IndieGogo page, “3.3 billion people live at risk of malaria across 106 malaria-endemic countries. Although the risk is widespread, cases and deaths are concentrated in Africa. In 2010, over 80 percent of 216 million estimated cases and over 90 percent of 655,000 estimated deaths occurred in Africa. Prompt diagnosis and effective treatment are the cornerstones of malaria case management; patients recover rapidly if diagnosed and treated early.”
Sound like a cause worth fighting for? You can help out the team with a starting donation of £5 ($8.50), which will net you a mention on the project’s Twitter feed. You can, of course, donate even more.
Follow this article’s writer, Leif Johnson, on Twitter.
Streaming devices from Apple’s competitors might be gaining ground (hello, Chromecast), but ever undaunted, the Cupertino company continues to make Apple TV a device worth owning. The iPhone maker has spent the last year or so stuffing the device with …
A few months ago, Apple added an NPR channel to iTunes Radio, which includes rebroadcasts of popular segments and shows like “All Things Considered.” Prior to that, you could find your local station by listening to NPR News from the iPad app, or you could stream shows from the official website. Now, in addition to […]
