iOS 5.1 available over the air now, changelog inside

The iOS 5.1 OTA update

Just hours after the iOS 5.1 update was announced at Apple’s iPad event in San Francisco the update is live for you to download.

The update brings Japanese language support for Siri as well as the option to selectively delete photos from Photo Stream in iCloud. Also, the lockscreen camera shortcut is now constantly visible on the lockscreen and more.

Go check your iDevice for the update, but keep in mind that you may experience issues with its download. If you get an error message just keep trying or leave it for tomorrow as the Apple servers are probably having trouble coping with the high initial demand.

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Top 5 Features of Apple’s New iPad

Apple just unveiled the brand new iPad on Wednesday. As far as we can tell it’s just being called the “new iPad.” Not the iPad 3 or the iPad HD, although there are references to the “third generation iPad” on Apple’s website. It’s a pretty stunning device and I’ve already argued that it offers new enhancements to change the tablet game all over again. You may have been there for our live blog or hitting the TechnoBuffalo homepage as we broke the news, but in case you weren’t, here are the top five features of the new iPad as we see them.

Retina Display

The Retina Display is definitely the highlight feature of the new iPad. It doubles the sharpness of the previous iPad 2 with a 2047 x 1536-pixel resolution. That’s like having an HDTV in your shoulder bag, folks, except it can be used for email, gaming and more. You already know that. Just know that it’s much sharper and a huge advance over any other tablet’s display currently on the market. Yes, I’m fanatically in love with the Super AMOLED Plus screens on Samsung’s smartphones, but the sharpness just wins this round for me, hands down.

4G LTE Support

Oooo weeee! This is what we were looking for and Apple included it. The new iPad is capable of running on AT&T and Verizon’s brand new and super fast 4G LTE networks. Here in New York City, I’ve noticed that both are capable of providing faster download and upload speeds than my Time Warner Cable connection — that’s impressive and I’ve loved the speeds on other smartphones and tablets, including the Motorola Xyboard 8.9 tablet that I use regularly. Add in support for sharing the connection with other Wi-Fi enabled devices and the new iPad is that much sweeter. Better yet, the tablet supports HSPA+ and HSDPA networks, which means you’ll be able to take advantage of “4G” or 3G speeds in international markets. Seriously, it supports all of these bands:

• Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n)
• Bluetooth 4.0 technology
• Wi-Fi + 4G for AT&T model: LTE (700, 2100 MHz); UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
• Wi-Fi + 4G for Verizon model: LTE (700 MHz); CDMA EV-DO Rev. A (800, 1900 MHz); UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)

Quad-Core Graphics

Apple’s new iPad is equipped with a dual-core A5X chip, but it also supports quad-core graphics. That means we can expect some killer games, including Epic Games’ Infinity Blade: Dungeons. As a huge fan of Dungeon Hunter 2 and other dungeon-crawler hack-and-slash style games I can’t wait to give this one a whirl. NVIDIA has killer games for its Tegra 3 quad-core processor in the pipeline too, and that chip offers 16 graphics processing cores, but at this point I think Apple’s going to beat it to the market with the amount of games available. It’s going to be a wait-and-see approach here, though, and I won’t make too many judgements until I try games that take advantage of the quad-core GPU in the new iPad and NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 chipset.

5-megapixel camera with 1080p HD video recording

Plenty — and I mean plenty — of other devices already offer 5-megapixel cameras, even 8-megapixel cameras, with 1080p HD video recording. But it’s nonetheless one of the newer and more appreciated features on the new iPad. It remains to be seen how great the images and videos turn out, but we know for sure that the iPhone 4S offers among the best recording and photo snapping cameras on the market today. Aside from, perhaps, Nokia’s freshly announced 808 PureView phone, which has an incredible 41-megapixel camera!

Killer Battery Life

Apple included a 42.5-watt-hour rechargeable lithium-polymer battery in the new iPad. Despite adding a better GPU, a faster processor and support for 4G LTE networks, there’s little to no sacrifice on battery life. The Cupertino-based company still promises 10 hours of battery and 9 hours of juice on 4G LTE networks. The iPad 2, by comparison, offers the same 10 hours of battery life and 9 hours of battery life on 4G LTE networks. Usually, we see a sacrifice in usability time when it comes to 4G but that appears it won’t be the case with the new iPad. Of course, we’ll know much more once we get a unit in for testing.

The new iPad is up for pre-order beginning today and starts at $499. It should arrive in your hands by March 16th. You can bet we’ll be doing in-depth video and text reviews of the new device as soon as we get our hands on one, so be sure to stick around!

Related articles

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New Apple iPad goes official, Retina display and A5X chip

Apple just unveiled the next-gen iPad at its event in San Francisco. Packing a Retina IPS display with the mind-blowing resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels and a bumped up GPU, this shapes up to be one of the hottest slates on the market. And yes, the iPad has kept its Home button alright.

Strangely, rumors about the new slate being called iPad 3 or iPad HD turned out wrong and the new device is simply called iPad – just like the first generation device.

The event started with the announcement of iOS 5.1 – it’s available starting today and will roll out in Japan over the next few weeks, bringing Japanese language support for Siri, as previously rumored.

The new Apple TV also got a spot under the sunlight at the event – 1080p-capable, running iOS with a new UI with big “billboard images for movies”. It will be available for $99 and will be available next week with pre-orders starting today.

Moving on to the main course for the night, the new Apple iPad offers a Retina display with a resolution of 2048 x 1536 with around 263.92 ppi. Apple also says that it has better color saturation than the iPad 2.

The processor inside is not a quad-core A6 but a dual-core A5X with quad-core graphics. The camera is dubbed iSight – it’s a 5 MP BSI unit with auto-focus, sporting a 5-element lens. The new iPad’s camera offers 1080p video recording. The new iPad features 21Mbps HSPA+ and 42Mbps DC-HSDPA and 4G LTE up to 73Mbps.

The new iPad will keep its acclaimed 10-hour battery life, save when in 4G mode when it will be able to do 9 hours. The 16GB version of the new iPad will cost $499, the 32GB abd 64GB will be $599 and $699. The 4G versions will be $629, $729 and $829 for the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB versions. It will be available on March 16.

Along with the third-gen iPad we saw the iPhoto for iOS and updated iMovie app as well as new versions of Infinity Blade – Dungeons and Sketchbook Ink.

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Android Jelly Bean and Key Lime Pie: What to expect

Android fans are still struggling to get their hands on Ice Cream Sandwich, but Google is already working on Jelly Bean and now Key Lime Pie.

Product codenames are part and parcel of the technology world, with many companies choosing to go with mythological figures (Zeus, Athena), place names (Chicago, Vienna), rivers (Tualatin, Willamette), or animals (Snow Leopard, Lion) to refer to their products before they get a “real” name. With Android, Google whimsically chose to go with desserts, and has been bumping Android codenames one letter along the alphabet with each release: Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Froyo (for “frozen yogurt”), Gingerbread, Honeycomb, and now Ice Cream Sandwich. Now comes word that the next two Android releases will be “Jelly Bean” and “Key Lime Pie.” But with the Android ecosystem still struggling to get its hands on Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich,” what can folks expect future releases to bring?

Google itself has had absolutely nothing to say publicly about future versions of Android, and — as expected — declined to comment. So these represent educated guesses about Jelly Bean and Key Lime Pie… sprinkled with a a few things we’ve heard through the grapevine.

Jelly Bean

The “Jelly Bean” name isn’t news: It’s been kicking around since mid-2011, with strong confirmations only landing when Google started gearing up for Ice Cream Sandwich. Just like ICS, Google is being tight-lipped about what it plans to include in Jelly Bean. Expect these key features.

Tablets… and notebooks? — As with Android HoneyComb, Google is expected to be optimizing Jelly Bean for tablets and other large-screened devices, potentially including notebooks or netbooks that could dual boot Windows and Android, and possibly run them live side-by-side without requiring users to shut down one or the other. Although noted by only one source in the Android device industry, the rationale is apparently two-fold: Google’s Chrome OS have so far failed to gain traction amongst consumers, and tablet makers haven’t considered Ice Cream Sandwich to be a game-changer for Android in the tablet arena. If Android wants to take on the iPad, Jelly Bean will need to bring a better proposition to device makers.

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Up to 18,000 iPad 2s May Enlist for the U.S. Air Force

Nearly a month after making a proposal to replace its inflight manuals with 18,000 iPad 2s, the U.S. Air Force has awarded a $9.36 million contract to Phoenix-based vendor Executive Technology to make the purchase. Apple’s tablet supposedly beat out competition from the PlayBook, Xoom, Galaxy Tab and Nook Tablet.

Bloomberg reports the Air Force will opt for the 32GB, Wi-Fi model at a subsidized price of $529 compared to the normal rate of $599. Someone ought to warn the USAF that Apple is planning an event for its next iPad next week. Actually, Executive Technology has acknowledged a refresh is looming, but noted it has a year to make purchases with the funding – so far 63 iPad 2s have been purchased.

The devices will act as electronic flight bags for paper manual and chart replacement, which can sometimes weight up to 40 pounds. In comparison, an iPad weighs in at a fraction. Apple’s iPad was previously adopted by both Delta and Alaska Airlines as part of a trial program in 2011. The USAF has plans to implement the devices largely the same way.

“Aircrews fly nonstop worldwide missions and require access to flight publications both on and off the aircraft, throughout all phases of flight,” Captain Kathleen Ferrero told Bloomberg in an email. In the USAF’s eyes, the iPad 2 was the perfect device for the job.

[via Bloomberg]

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Siri Reveals Its Ability to Speak Japanese

By Killian Bell

Siri doesn’t currently support the Japanese language, but according to a recent report, it is coming soon. If you needed concrete evidence of this, then you only need to look as far as Siri itself, which has confirmed it has the ability to speak Japanese.

9to5Mac reports that when you ask Siri which languages it speaks, it replies, “I can speak French, English, Japanese, and German… but I’m always learning.”

Of course, officially, Siri only support English — with an American, British, or Australian accent — French, and German. But a recent rumor from Tech In Asia claimed the intelligent assistant would get support for Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and Russian imminently.

All three languages are believed to be coming next month, though it seems from the images above that Japanese will be the first to arrive — possibly at Apple’s iPad 3 event which is expected to go ahead during the first week of March.

9to5Mac also notes that shortly after Apple first announced Siri at its Let’s talk iPhone event in October 2010, the company released a Siri FAQ that confirmed the feature would support Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Italian, and Spanish in 2012.

Does Siri speak your language yet?

[via 9to5Mac]

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zAPPed Makes Your iOS Gadgets Part of the Board Game

By Joshua Schnell, Feb 14, 2012 4:44 PM

Photo: Hasbro

Hasbro plans to release new editions of three of its classic games this year. The spin? The zAPPed games will use iOS devices to help bring them to life.

The Game of Life zAPPed is available in stores now. Instead of being represented by tiny, featureless pink and blue pegs, players can completely customize their virtual pegs, adding hair, hats and other accessories. The iPad is also used to play a series of mini-games that have been integrated into the main game, as well as serving as the spinner, complete with an authentic tick-tick-ticking sound. Hasbro additionally partnered with America’s Funniest Videos to bring life stage appropriate videos to the game.

In Monopoly zAPPed, you can use any iOS device as a digital bank. That’s right; there’s no paper money in this version of the game, which is good for those with limited math skills but bad for those who liked to hedge their bets by hiding a few hundreds under the board. [Crap; there goes my entire strategy. –Ed.] Instead, each player gets a “debit card” that lives on your iOS gadgetry–just tap it to complete a transaction. The Community Chest and Chance cards have also gone digital, replaced by more digital mini-games. You can play additional mini-games to get out of jail or avoid fines. [Man, imagine if that existed in real life… –Ed.]

With Battleship zAPPed, you place the battleships onto the surface of an iPad. Special conductive paint on the battleships will allow the iPad to track their positions (Monopoly zAPPed uses a similar technology to differentiate the debit cards).

Monopoly zAPPed should be out this June, with Battleship zAPPed following in September. The games should all be priced around $25, but they of course do not include the iOS devices, which could be the bigger price hurdle for some. The accompanying iOS apps will be available for free in the App Store.

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Samsung Launches Low-Cost Android 4.0 Tablet

By Mikael Ricknäs, IDG News    Feb 13, 2012 10:30 pm

 

Samsung Electronics has launched the Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0), the first of its tablets to ship with Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and its own Touchwiz user interface, the company said on Monday.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0)The latest addition to Samsung’s tablet portfolio is powered by a dual-core 1GHz processor and has a 7-inch screen with a 1024-by-600 pixel resolution.

The tablet will cost about €270 (US$350) excluding taxes for the Wi-Fi version, according to a statement from Samsung in Sweden, which also says that it will start shipping in March.

Samsung will also sell a 3G version of the Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0), which can function as a phone and connects to the Internet using HSPA (High-Speed Packet Access) at 21mbps.

The tablet is 0.41 inches (10.5 millimeters) thick and weighs 0.75 pounds (344 grams), compared to the iPad 2, which is 0.34 inches (8.8 millimeters) thick and weighs 1.32 pounds (601 grams).

The specification also includes two cameras; 8, 16, or 32GB of integrated storage and MicroSD card slot; and a 4000 mAh battery that should last for up to 39 hours, according to Samsung.

With a lower price, Samsung hopes to attract a larger audience to its tablets. Sales of Android-based tablets more than tripled during the fourth quarter of 2011, but Apple still dominates the market, according to a recent report from Strategy Analytics. The Android camp had a 39.1 percent share of global tablet shipments, compared to 29 percent a year earlier. Apple’s share dropped from 68.2 percent to 57.6 percent, according to Strategy Analytics.

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Upcoming BlackBerry 10 OS screenshots leak

CrackBerry.com has acquired an internal email from RIM, which shows off the UI of their next generation OS, the BlackBerry 10. The hardware in the pictures below might be current the current 9860 but the OS is all new.

In this picture we can see the new homescreen, which is quite a bit different from the one we saw before. You can see large widgets on the screen that remind you of the live tiles in Windows Phone. And they are not static either and you can see information like weather, call information, album art and current location on a map on the respective widgets. There is also a new bar at the bottom that vaguely reminds us a bit of Nokia’s Belle OS.

Moving on, we have the application drawer here. Looking at the screenshot it’s hard to say which direction it scrolls in. We can’t find the usual tabs at the top of the drawer as in the current OS 7 either, so maybe RIM has gone for a single, long list. We can see new icons, as well as a folder that you can use to put icons in. It’s unclear how you invoke this application drawer from the homescreen.

Finally, we have an image of the in-call screen, showing a large picture of the caller on top and large touch buttons, including one for video calls, below.

Overall, the new BlackBerry 10 is looking quite promising. Unfortunately, there will be quite a wait before we could actually get our hands on it.

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Chinon Unveils Bargain Tablets

The Chinon Swift-7 costs just $160, while the Swift-10 costs $280.

By Jeff Bertolucci  Feb 14, 2012 7:15 am

Chinon USA Monday announced two low-cost Android tablets targeted at cost-conscious buyers. The 7-inch Chinon Swift-7 costs $160, while the 9.7-inch Chinon Swift-10 is $280.

Both tablets run Android 2.3–a disappointing choice what with new Android slates like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2.0 featuring version 4.0, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich.

The smaller Swift-7 is aggressively priced. In fact, it’s $40 less than Amazon’s popular Kindle Fire.

How do they compare? Both tablets have 7-inch screens, but the Kindle Fire’s 1024 x 600 resolution is higher than the Swift-7’s 800 x 600.

Unlike the Fire–but like Apple’s iPad–both Chinon displays (7- and 9.7-inch) have a 4:3 aspect ratio.

Expandable Storage

The Kindle Fire has more storage, too: 8GB (with 6GB available for user content) versus the Swift’-7’s 4GB. That’s enough room, Chinon says, for about 2,000 songs, 40,000 photos, or four full-length movies.

You can add storage to the Swift-7 or Swift-10 via a Micro SD memory card slot. Battery life for both Swift tablets is approximately five hours.

Like the Kindle Fire, the Swift-7 supports 802.11n Wi-Fi. Unlike the Fire, the Swift-7 has a front-facing camera with a not-so-great 640 x 480 resolution. (Given the tablet’s $160 price, it might be too greedy to expect anything better.)

The Swift-10 has two cameras–front and rear–each 2 megapixels. Like the iPad 2, its 9.7-inch IPS display has a 1024 x 768 resolution.

Chinon USA is clearly aiming for the bargain end of the burgeoning tablet market. The Swift specs suggest a so-so slate experience–which may be good enough for users who simply want to check email, watch the occasional YouTube video, and, yes, play Angry Birds.

Then again, the Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Nook may very well offer a better user experience for a mere $40 more.

In the 10-inch market, the Swift-10 faces stiff competition from a host of Android challengers, many of which are priced only slightly higher. For instance, the Wi-Fi version of the aforementioned Galaxy Tab 2, which runs Android 4.0, will cost around $350 when it ships in March.

And don’t forget about the iPad 2, which Apple may continue to sell at a reduced price, once the iPad 3 (allegedly) arrives next month.

Related articles

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