Latest Gadgets, Tablets and Smartphones
Apple [AAPL] has announced that the Mac App Store will be launching on January 6. The launch will see the app store arrive in 90 countries around the globe and will offer a mixture of paid and free applications.
“The App Store revolutionized mobile apps,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We hope to do the same for PC apps with the Mac App Store by making finding and buying PC apps easy and fun. We can’t wait to get started on January 6.”
Quest Visual has launched a new app in to the Apple [AAPL] iTunes store called Word Lens. The Word Lens app allows you to use the camera on your iPhone and point it at Spanish words. When it detects Spanish words, it automatically switches them to English words (and vice-versa).
The system works in real-time and uses the live image from the camera to superimpose the translated text on to, as seen in the image below. [Read more…]
Apple [AAPL] has approved the Bing 2.0 app for iPhone.
New features of the app include quicker ways to find restaurants based on price range, cuisine, atmosphere and location. Also, movies can be found by name, location or theater. As well as creating new ways to search for things to do in your local area, Bing 2.0 also has Facebook integration as well as access to the Streetside service. [Read more…]
Apple [AAPL] has released a new update for iBooks. The new update is version 1.2 and it brings several new features to the iPhone and iPad (and iPod touch).
New features include better and fully illustrated books allowing childrens books to look better as well as for other books such as artbooks to get a makeover.
The update also brings more organisation to your library and now allows you to organise the library in to collections. The Books/PDF buttons have now been replaced with a single button that takes you to a list of folders. Here, you can create new collections such as study books etc… and then put books in to the folder to keep things more organised. [Read more…]
BGR had some interesting thoughts in an article published today. They are hinting at the AT&T [T] iPhone exclusivity ending within the next few weeks, ie 31st December this year. They then go on to suggest that Verizon [VZ], who is taking the stage at CES 2011 in early January could invite Steve Jobs on to stage to announce the Verizon iPhone 4.
Verizon will actually be announcing its 4G network (well, LTE as it’s not really 4G), at CES which makes the likely hood of Steve Jobs joining them on stage a little less of a possibility as we assume the iPhone 4 will not be compatible with Verizon’s new network unless it has some fancy chipset inside. [Read more…]
Those with an Apple iOS device such as the iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, now have access to the Google Voice app. Prior to this launch, the Google Voice app was only available for the iPhone.
The app is compatible with the iPad and iPod but all features are not available such as the ability to make voice calls as described below…
While you can’t use your iPod or iPad as a phone, you can use it to initiate Google Voice calls with your phones. We call this feature Click2Call. Simply click any ‘Call’ button in the Google Voice app on your iPod or iPad and then select which of your phones you want to ring. Google Voice will call your phone and then connect your call.
AppleInsider has posted an interesting report created by Piper Jaffray…
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster expects Apple to sell just 2.5 million additional iPhones in the US by adding Verizon as a carrier early next year, bringing 2011’s US iPhone sales to 20 million, with Verizon’s sales largely coming at the expense of AT&T.
Although Steve Jobs said there was no chance a smaller 7 inch iPad would be built, the rumors still wont die. We now hear from Reuters who cite an Asian manufacturing source who says a smaller, half sized iPad is currently being manufactured.
There aren’t any other rumors to accompany this one other than the source indicating that this particular model will sit right between the iPod touch and the regular iPad. Some features we can predict if this rumor ends up being true is that it will have a higher res screen as well as a couple of cameras one of which for FaceTime calls. [Read more…]
BestBuy.com in the US is now selling the Apple iPad. Prior to this weekend, you could only reserve an iPad at BestBuy and then pick it up instore.
All six models of the iPad are available at the moment with each of them having free shipping. The price is slightly higher for some reason, only 99 cents higher, but if you can’t or don’t want to get one direct from Apple, then you now have another choice. [Read more…]
Engadget has reported some problems with the Adobe Flash plug-in running on the new Chrome OS laptop. They reported that YouTube and other flash based video content stutters a lot and that the plug-in keeps on crashing while using it.
Luckily, Adobe is aware of the issue and is working on a fix that will be pushed out to the OS automatically in the coming weeks. Once installed, it should sort out all the problems. It seems that Adobe is first focusing on getting video playback just right. [Read more…]
The iPad 2 rumors keep flowing in before its estimated release date. This time we hear more about the iPad 2 camera, or cameras as we learn. Certain sources are claiming that dual cameras will be included in the iPad 2 and that production will go ahead as expected in the first quarter of 2011.
The information comes from Reuters who managed to get together four sources of information relating to the iPad 2 cameras. [Read more…]
We just mentioned some details about the iPad 2 getting cameras. We now hear that the 9.7 inch screen will not be OLED as rumored before. Of course, this is just another rumor to tackle the previous rumor which said it would. The reason that the iPad 2 display wont be OLED is apparently because of Samsung Mobile Display not being able to manufacture enough of them in time for the iPad 2 release date.
Samsung Mobile Display have about 98% market share of OLED panels and as Apple needs millions of them making any time now, this just isn’t going to happen. [Read more…]
