iPhone Cruncher

Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) search experience on tablets has
been pretty good to date.

Google search on the immensely successful Apple iPad has
been a breeze. The virtual keyboard on slates running Google’s Android “Honeycomb”
operating system is wide and evenly spaced, certainly better than that of any
smartphone.

Of course, one of Google’s core tenets concerns improving
speed from users’ input actions to the consumption of Web content. To that end,
the company has
simplified the layout of search results pages and boosted the size of text,
buttons and other “touch targets.”

Google shed the navigation bar at the left hand side of
the screen. Instead, the search button located below the search box now provides
quick access to images, videos, places, shopping and date range refinements,
all accessible with easy taps.

Image results also now include larger image previews,
continuous scroll, and faster loading of image thumbnails.

Google said the new search refinements, which mirror in
theory the easy-to-use refinements that live in the left-hand rail in Google.com’s
desktop search, are rolling out soon to iPad and Android 3.1+ tablets in 36
languages.

Such capabilities should make searching Google.com faster
from a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 or Asus Eee Pad Transformer faster in both
portrait and landscape view.

Google also took the opportunity to spruce up search ads
it optimizes for tablets, according to Surojit Chatterjee, product
manager for Google mobile ads.

Users who enter in a search query when the tablet is in
landscape mode will see only up to two top ads above the search results. Users
who search when the tablet is in portrait mode will see only up to 3 ads above
the search results.

Finally, Google will only show up to three ads at the
bottom of search results whether the slate is positioned in portrait or
landscape mode.

Google has never been shy about advertising, but tablets are green fields for the search engine because the 7 to 10-inch screen real estate of the slates lies in between 4-inch smartphone displays and 15-inch

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Usually the notion goes that Apple innovates and everyone else copies, but the recent unveiling of iOS 5 shows a different truth altogether. There are quite a few features that are directly copied from Android to iOS 5. Here is a look at the cool features that already existed in Android phones before it came to iPhone.

Notification Bar:
The top gray bar on the Android screen displays important information about the Android phone. It shows the time, battery state and network state icons. Android also shows icons in Notification bar when there is an update about text message, email or voicemail. One of the biggest advantages of Notification bar is it one can pull it down by touching the bar and then swipe finger to the bottom of the screen which will stretch and open up just like a window shade.

Few of the various possible notification icons included in different Android devices are battery charging option, battery levels (75%, 50%, 25%), call is in progress, call is on hold, missed call, new email received, new text message received, new SMS/MMS received, new voicemail received, visual voicemail (Verizon app) activity, phone currently muted, navigation enabled, alarm is set, call forwarding enabled, 3G (service connected, service roaming, service not connected), GPS (enabled, GPS sending/receiving data), WiFi (connected, WiFi not connected but networks detected), app downloaded or updated, Bluetooth (enabled, Bluetooth device connected), data syncing, more notifications available option, USB connected, sync error or PC connection debug mode enabled, audio file playing, speaker phone enabled, upcoming calendar event, uploading or downloading software and Airplane mode activated (cellular WiFi disabled).

The recently unveiled iOS 5 has “Notification Bar” enabled in it. Perhaps this is the most blatant copy of Android feature to iOS. The Android notifications have appeared in the top bar of their operating system since the beginning. The recently added

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Reading these comments makes me think people either miss the point, or they do not own an e-reader.

A Kindle will not let you read a Nook file, nor a Kobo or Sony file – just as a Nook will not let you read a Kindle file, and so on and so forth – much less BUY a competitor’s file format. You could / should complain about that. With the iDevice, you can read from all those fractured store formats on one device.

Apple asked for those vendors to use the Apple designated purchase system – and they opted not too. Good for them. You can still buy over the internet, or is that too difficult for you?

You can still BUY an e-book for your Kindle, Nook or whatever over the internet, and thanks to their various applications, you can read it on your designated reader, your iDevice, your computer, your Android device, or whatever.

You can still download free e-books and read them on your iDevice – even with iBooks for free. With the Nook at least, they would like to charge you for that privilidge unless you jump through hoops.

And yet the hating loathing of Apple tending its gardens just sends the haters into a frothy spree without knowing the facts – much like the Tea Party.

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30 Days With the iPad: Day 29

In keeping with the precedent established in previous “30 Days With…” series, I devoted yesterday’s post to detailing my complaints and criticisms. Today is dedicated to the counter point of view–a list of my favorite things about the iPad from my 30 Days With the iPad journey.

The iPad has an advantage over previous 30 Days projects (Google Docs and Ubuntu Linux) because I was already familiar with it before I began. While I was essentially new to both Google Docs, and Ubuntu Linux, I have had an iPad since the first day it was available. The challenge for the 30 Days, though, was to shift from using it as an accessory or complementary gadget, and instead rely on it as the sole computing platform.

There were, of course, some bumps along the way, but there are also a few things that I truly appreciated about using the iPad instead of my notebook. Without further ado, here is my list of the five things I like most about the iPad:

The iPad 2 is exceptionally thin and light compared to notebooks and even netbooks.1. Size. Size does matter. And when you’re talking about lugging a device around all over town, the smaller the better…to a point. Carting a 15-inch notebook, or maybe one of those laptops with dual 17-inch displays, may provide more of a portable computing workhorse, but then we get into a semantic debate about defining “portable”.

On the other end of the spectrum, you could argue that the iPhone (or an Android or Windows Phone 7 smartphone) are even more compact and portable, or make a case for smaller tablets

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For years, we’ve been hearing about cheaper versions of the iPhone to be released along with the usual, $200-300 models. And, for the most part, it has been happening: previous model prices are slashed and released along with their newer counterparts (i.e. the iPhone 3G when the 3GS was released, and the 3GS when the iPhone 4 came out). This time, it looks like an almost completely different version, or “light” version will hit shelves when the iPhone 5 comes out. Or will it?

TechCrunch points to images that may either be modded versions of the existing Apple smartphone, perhaps done with conversion kits, or it could be a less expensive version ready to hit the market once the iPhone 5 is released. It has a matte finish, which indicates that the front and rear panels are made of some kind of plastic instead of glass. It would be unusual for Apple to release a phone like this–with cheaper materials and a dull finish–but who knows? Maybe it’s trying to crack into the low-end, budget-conscious market. Maybe $49 for an 8GB iPhone 3GS is just too much for some folks.

What do you think? Does it look legit or could this be just a mistake or hoax? Let us know your thoughts.

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The iPhone 4 is the thinnest smartphone ever with all-new design, FaceTime video calling, Apple’s stunning new Retina display, 5 megapixel camera and HD video recording. Read More »

Key Features

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Straits Times mobile editor Zuraimie Ismail, seen here showing the app, sold the idea of putting the entire newspaper on the iPad even before the device was released here last year. — ST PHOTO: KEVIN LIM

View more photos

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NAMCO BANDAI released an awesome iOS app called iGunCon, which allows iPhone 4 and iPad 2 owners to use their beloved smartphone as a controller for the hot shooting titles TIME CRISIS 2ND STRIKE for iPhone and iPod touch, TIME CRISIS 2ND STRIKE HD for iPad and TIME CRISIS 2ND STRIKE on the Mac App Store. That’s the official line, but honestly I can only imagine using an iPhone as a controller to aim at the iPad or Mac screen — the iPad 2 is just too big for the purpose.

If you want to try this out (and by all means – do it), download iGunCon on your iPhone 4, then link it to an iPad or Mac that is running TIME CRISIS 2ND STRIKE and start your shooting spree. Your iPhone 4 will display a Trigger, Action and Reload areas, while the device running TIME CRISIS 2ND STRIKE will show crosshairs. Players can line the crosshairs up with enemies and tap the Trigger area to shoot their way through multiple pulse-pounding game modes. Awesome!

Aside from this Controller Mode, iGunCon also has a way less interesting Toy Mode that allows gamers to recreate the shooting sounds from TIME CRISIS series of games, including the sounds of the in-game handgun, machine gun, shotgun and grenade launcher.

iGunCon (FREE) [iTunes link]
TIME CRISIS 2ND STRIKE for iPhone ($6.99) [iTunes link]
TIME CRISIS 2ND STRIKE for iPad (FREE) [iTunes link]

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Put your precision touch-shooting skills to the test in 10 new unlockable mini-stages.

New in v1.2.0:
+ NEW MODE: Leaderboard Challenge! Score ranking supported in all 10 stages. Blast your way to

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Spotify launched in the United States less than two weeks ago and it is already the target of a patent infringement lawsuit. A firm called PacketVideo is suing and alleges that Spotify is infringing on patent 5,646,276 for “a device for the distribution of music information in digital form.” The patent describes a method of accessing music through a “central memory device” that is connected to a “communications network and has a databank of digitized music information.” Surely, your computer, mobile devices and the cloud  are all “central memory devices” that can be used to access Spotify over communications networks, but the lawsuit sounds a bit far fetched to us. After all, there are dozens of competing services such as Rhapsody, Apple iCloud, Amazon, Pandora and Slacker that offer a similar experience. According to TechDirt, PacketVideo purchased the patent in question in 1995.

Read

Tags: cloud, infringement, lawsuit, Legal, music, Packet Video, PacketVideo, patent, Spotify, streaming, sue

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Google announced on Friday that it has improved the search experience for users accessing www.google.com from a tablet. Search results are now simplified and text, buttons and other areas are now larger and easier to tap. In addition, Google has created larger image previews, faster loading thumbnails and has a new continuous scroll feature. The new search page will begin to roll out in the “coming days” and can be viewed on devices running Android 3.1+ (Honeycomb) and on the iPad in 36 different languages.

[Via Gizmodo]

Read

Tags: Galaxy Tab 10.1, google, iPad, search UI, tablet search UI

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By Richi Jennings (@richi ) – July 29, 2011.
[Updated with more leaked iPhone 5 case imagery]
 
The iPhone 5 release date rumors continue to swirl. This must be the 10729th iteration of whispers about the iconic Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) shiny launch. In IT Blogwatch, bloggers prepare for the pomaceous precioussss.

Your humble blogwatcher curated these bloggy bits for your entertainment. Not to mention: A great idea for a call-forwarding prank…

Daniel Ionescu blogs in the following fashion:

According to China Times…suppliers are currently preparing 400,000 trial run iPhone 5 units…[a]s the iPhone 5 features guessing game picks up steam. … For the past three years Apple has held a media event in September…this year the company is expected to launch the long-awaited iPhone 5.
…
The iPhone…is due for a refresh, as the iPhone 4 was launched more than one year ago. Conflicting rumors…are split between an incremental upgrade…with an A5 dual-core chip…and a camera boost, or a rather more radical refresh…as suggested by alleged cases for the upcoming device.   

   
Arnold Kim reads the rumor runes in the original hanzi:

The China Times pinpoints…the second week of September…[which] lines up nicely with current expectations.
…
The China Times has had a hit or miss record with Apple-related rumors, though they do seem close to Apple’s suppliers…and may…have knowledge of their production plans.   

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