iPad - page 214

A year or two ago, IT departments were focused on mobile device management (MDM) as a way to secure smartphones and other mobile devices. It was a natural extension of how IT had always handled technology in the workplace. While there are times that strict device management is the best approach (such as K-12 schools), IT departments are beginning to realize that MDM isn’t always the course of action.

In fact, the rush to lock down every device feature was little more than stale and rather old thinking on the parts of IT leaders who are now looking for better options.

We absolutely adore beautiful wallpapers here at Cult of Mac, and we’re always on the hunt to find beautiful images to share. We already pointed you towards a plethora of wallpapers that have been optimized for the iPad’s Retina display, and we’ve found another collection to check out.

Something you may have noticed while playing with your new iPad is that many iPhone apps now look much better when expanded to fill the iPad’s 9.7-inch screen. You’ve always been able to run iPhone apps on the iPad in their shruken, non-Retina resolution. Tapping the little ‘2x’ button would instantly make the app expand to fill the display. An unfortunate side effect was that enlarged iPhone apps on the iPad looked pretty awful.

Thanks to the new iPad’s stunning 2048×1536 Retina display, iPhone apps now look much better when zoomed in on the tablet’s shiny screen.

According to a new report, Microsoft will launch Windows 8 this October. That tracks with the company’s announced plan to launch the latest version of Windows before the end of the. The launch will include traditional PCs like desktops and notebook as well as tablets. How successful Microsoft and its partners will be in taking business and consumer tablet marketshare away from the iPad remains an open question, however.

Over the past two years, the Internet has been flooded with stories about the next iPad-killer. The iPad-killing hype has been applied to the Cisco Cius, Motorola Xoom, BlackBerry PlayBook, HP Touch Pad, and Galaxy Tab just to name a few. Several of these products were specifically hyped at being business tablets – alternatives to the iPad in the workplace.

At the end of the day, however, the iPad still rules the tablet space in general and the business tablet in particular. Despite being a “consumer” device, the business tablet market is really the business iPad market. The latest statistic to drive this point home is that, during the new iPad launch, Apple sold more iPads in one weekend during than one quarter of Android tablets ever sold.

Sales figures like that pose a question for IT departments – Is there a point to developing support models for Android tablets?

In a response to reports that the new iPad can get pretty toasty when compared with the iPad 2’s heat output, Apple has responded with an official comment telling everyone to take a chill pill. According to Apple, the new iPad operates “well within our thermal specification” and there shouldn’t be a cause for concern.

Full response from Apple:

Carriers are constantly talking about the limited spectrum available for mobile devices. That’s the reason that give for instituting data caps and throttling heavy users. It’s reasonable to assume that carriers exaggerate the real issues somewhat when the trot this argument out as a case for data caps and tiered data pricing (they make a lot of money that way), but it is true that radio spectrum is a finite resource. With Cisco predicting an 39-fold increase mobile traffic use will over the next four years, carriers will need to find creative ways to manage the slices of spectrum that they have.

One option is to offload service to Wi-Fi networks. All iPhone (or other smartphone) users do this already to some extent when we connect our iPhones to our home networks. They deliver better performance and let use as much data as we want without having to worry about it impacting our next bill. Two mobile trade groups are looking to turn this same offloading model into a large scale option for carriers to deliver better mobile broadband while taking the load off their 3G or 4G networks.

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iPad-owning guitarists are going to love the Digitech iPB-10 Programable Pedalboard. It’s a stompbox with ten stud switches and a wah pedal on the side, all of which work with your iPad to give a range of music effects that you’d normally need a whole case of pedals to create.

Do you know anyone that owns an Android tablet? I sure as heck don’t, but they have to exist out there in the wild just like the rare and fabled Sumatran white rhinoceros, which native legend has supposedly living deep in the Indian rain forests. Which is rarer? But I digress. My point is that right now, Apple’s iPad is pretty much the only tablet you’ll see other people using because Apple is beating the pulp out of Android tablets with their massive sales numbers, and Apple maintains the momentum from the launch of the new iPad nothing will stop them.

Analysts predict that Apple’s new iPad, which has already sold over 3 million units, is shaping up to boost sales of the device by a whopping 156% year-over-year. The tablet is expected to become “measurably larger” that the entire PC market.

One of the feature on the new iPad is its dictation capabilities, a feature also available on the iPhone 4S (which also boasts Apple’s Siri virtual assistant feature). There are quite a few ways that high quality dictation and other speech to text capabilities could useful to professionals in many fields.

The problem is that in order to get that high quality dictation functionality, the new iPad and the iPhone 4S rely on Apple’s servers to do much of the work in turning your speech into text. More importantly, it isn’t just snippets of voice recordings that get sent to Apple. Personal data from your iPad or iPhone 4S gets uploaded as well and much of it remains associated with you and your device. That’s a general concern for most of us, but for professionals in regulated industries like healthcare or fields that require confidentiality like finance and legal professions, it becomes a critical privacy concern and may even break the law.

Stick with photography long enough, and eventually you’ll need a a camera remote so you can trigger your DSLR without touching it.

Trigger Happy, an applaud-worthy idea currently on Kickstarter, let’s you do just that, but with your iPhone and one simple cable instead of one of those expensive, camera-specific triggers.

Apple’s new iPad has been available to purchase in the U.S. and nine other countries for just four days, but over 200,000 units have already been smuggled into China for sale on the grey market. Natives are reportedly importing the device into the city of Shenzhen, a city that borders Hong Kong, for a profit of around $20 on each device.

Having slipped to 2-3 weeks last week, shipping times for the new iPad through Apple’s online store have already eased to just 1-2 weeks.

Blizzard, the company behind the hugely popular MMO World of Warcraft, has revealed that is constantly looking at ways in which it can bring its title to the iPhone, and admits that it would be “foolish” not to explore the possibility. It promises that as soon as it has perfected the mobile experience, we’ll know about it.

Over the past few days, a large number of iOS users have been reporting that their App Store downloads are becoming stuck on the “Waiting” status when they attempt to install or update a number of apps at once. It is thought that the influx of Retina updates for the new iPad is causing an App Store overload.

Fortunately, there is a simple workaround. Here’s how to fix that frustrating “Waiting” freeze.

Tim Cook said earlier this morning that Apple saw a “record weekend” for its new iPad, and AT&T has confirmed record iPad activations during the product’s launch day on Friday, March 16th. Although specific sales numbers have not been given by Apple, AT&T or Verizon, all signs point to another record-breaking product launch for Apple.

A new report says that Apple’s flagship 5th Avenue retail store in New York City was selling 18 iPads per minute during launch day, totaling a staggering 13,000 units sold during the first 12 hours of in-store availability.

As a business owner, I love being able to take payments on my iPhone or iPad when I’m on the go — like at my booth during Seattle Comic Con. That’s one of the reason’s I’m a big Square fan. But while Square has a beautiful design and makes taking credit card payments a snap, it lacks a lot of features real businesses need.

Enter USAePay, which, like Square, also offers iPhone and iPad-compatible credit card readers. But together with their iOS app, USAePay provides many features Square doesn’t. And it’s for that reason, I decided to take USAePay for a spin; here’s what I found.

NetZero made a name for itself in the late nineties by offering free ad-supported dialup Internet access before turning to a low-cost model (still available for dialup and and basic DSL). NetZero is returning to its free/freemium roots with today’s announcement of a contract-free 4G service. The service offers several tiers of data use with the first one being free beyond purchasing a 4G device.

While intriguing, the free service tier definitely illustrates the “you get what you pay for” addage. Some of the other tiers are attractive, but there are some downsides and, quite frankly, a Verizon 4G iPad may be a much smarter investment in the long run.

Following this morning’s comment from Apple CEO Tim Cook that the company is absolutely “thrilled” with its launch weekend sales for the new iPad, AT&T has confirmed record single-day sales and activations for the new tablet.

Apple’s new iPad packs a number of new features that the Cupertino company has been quick to boast about since its unveiling, but there is one that it’s yet to mention: Take the tablet to bed on a cold winter’s night and after half an hour’s reading you’ve got yourself a nice warm slab of aluminum to cuddle up to you.

Unlike its predecessor, the new iPad seems to be suffering from some overheating issues during prolonged periods of use. And it’s causing a number of early adopters to become pretty concerned.

The picture above will be familiar to any of you who owns an iPad. Unnoticeable when the screen is lit up, but distracting in strong sunlight and disgusting when the screen is off, greasy, filthy finger marks are the worst thing about the iPad.

Except that the picture above is actually a Retina-ready iPad wallpaper, ready for you to download and disgust your friends.

Anyone who’s ever flown is familiar with the “please turn off all electronic devices” speech that flight attendants give after closing the airplane door and again shortly before landing. The ban on electronic devices of all kinds exists out of fear that devices might interfere with the planes navigation and other systems, even if the device doesn’t include any sort of radio antenna.

The ban on electronic devices has come under fire recently as the F.A.A. has been certifying the use of iPads in the cockpit during all phases of flight (including takeoff and landing) by various commercial airlines as a replacement for hefty “flight bags” of paper manuals and charts.

In a move that will music to the ears of Words With Friends addict Alec Baldwin, the agency is looking at allowing the use of electronic devices by passengers during takeoff and landing

Apple wasn’t willing to go on record with the new iPad’s initial launch figures just yet, but when quizzed about it during the Q&A session of today’s announcement of an official dividend and stock repurchase plan, Tim Cook did let slip a bit about how well the new iPad had done.

We suspected as much, but the inquisitive engineers at Chipworks have confirmed that the camera inside the new iPad is indeed the same one found in the iPhone 4. The optics, as we already knew, come from the iPhone 4S’ camera.

Chipworks says that “It is very likely that Apple has recycled the 5MP back illuminated CMOS image sensor from the iPhone 4,” — the Omnivision OV5650.