Important iPad News
August 15th, 2011 at 11:29 AM EST | by Oliver VanDervoort
Being both an avid sports fan and an iPad geek it is hard for me to figure out what has gotten me more revved up as the summer winds down. On the one hand there was the almost hourly rumors flying around about who would be moved and where in the run up of the Major League Baseball trade deadline. On the other hand is the daily whispers that continue to come about when the next iPad and iPhone will be hitting the market.
While there have been a ton of rumors about the fact that the iPad 3 is going to be coming out this fall along with what is commonly referred to as the iPhone 4S, the newest rumblings seem to not only be backing up a fall of 2011 release but also the month it will be hitting shelves. According to several reports, both the iPhone 5 or 4S and the iPad 3 will go into full production in the first week of September and will start being offered to consumers in October.
Here’s where the story gets a bit interesting though. Reports have been circulating for months now that we can expect the iPad 3 to be hitting shelves this fall, but many industry analysts are also now claiming that the iPad 3 will need the new A6 chip in order to run properly and to the height of its possibilities. The hitch here is that rumors don’t have this new A6 chip being produced until early 2012. The chip of course will lead to faster processors and has long been thought to be getting released in time for the iPhone 6 so that device will blow away other smart phones. But if this particular chip is also slated to be put into the iPad 3 then something is clearly just not adding up. The news of this particular chip is also interesting because TSMC is supposedly the company that will contracted to make the new chip, replacing long time Apple partner Samsung who has been producing the A4 and A5 chips for years now.
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August 15th, 2011 at 8:58 AM EST | by Oliver VanDervoort
Anyone who has been following Apple closely at all knows that the company is run extremely well and that it is mighty profitable. What might surprise even those who watch the company and the business world in general very closely is just how profitable the company actually is. The stock market isn’t always the best indicator when talking about valuable a company is from one day to the next as there is something to be said for leaving it up to the whim of investors who can be pretty fickle when they are in the mood. Still, Apple’s rise to the top of the stock market on Wednesday August 10th shows just how well the company is doing over the last few years. A lot of that success can be attributed to the iPad.
Apple’s market cap valuation ended at $337.2 billion on the day, and despite vaulting into first the company’s shares actually dropped 2.8 percent. The company that actually fell into second place was oil giant Exxon, telling you exactly where we are when we’re talking about the most valuable companies in the world. Exxon saw their stock drop 4.4 percent in order to drop behind Apple for the first time when either company was sitting at the top of the stock market charts.
Apple has seen some real improvement in their stock value over the last few years. During their climb to the top of the earnings list, they have passed all other computer makers including Dell, HP and finally in 2010 they were able to pass their biggest competitor in Microsoft. Since Apple surged past them last year, Microsoft has actually seen a bit of a dip of their own stock and Apple’s stock is now worth more than $130 billion more than Microsoft. Ironically, a decade ago, Microsoft was also worth more than Exxon, but oil and gas prices have driven companies like Exxon to the top of the stock market where they seem like they will remain for years to come.
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August 1st, 2011 at 1:55 PM EST | by Oliver VanDervoort
While there are all kinds of different “Tower Defense” games currently circulating on the iPad, there are very few which truly strike me as an original idea. Trenches: Generals is one of those that is familiar enough that you won’t have a real hard time picking up on it, while it is new and different enough that you will feel as though you didn’t waste your money picking it up. The basic premise is this: either as the British or the Germans in World War I you are to set up obstacles and deploy troops in such a way that you are able to reach the enemy’s stronghold while simultaneously making sure the enemy does not reach yours.
The fact that the game is based on World War I as opposed to other war games that seem to love to give the players the ability to take on the Nazis is only one of the many differences this particular game offers. The game, should you decide to play the campaign, guides you through several different missions with varying degrees of difficulty, all involving you steadily advancing your troops and making sure that you have enough troops in the front line that the opponent cannot advance theirs. As your forces move forward, you have different units that you can produce over the course of time, with one of the most important being those that can actually first add wood and then stone fortification of a trench, turning it from a simple shelter, into a forward operating base from which the new units you create will spring forth. Barbed wire, gunshots and even gas attacks give this particular tower defense title a kind of realism I could actually see upsetting some of the younger set, if they understand just what they are actually ordering their troops to slog through, but it is also these original obstacles that continue to make the game fun. At some point, as you advance through the campaigns, you will actually be able to order mortar and gas attacks from afar on the advancing enemy, giving even more uncomfortable but effective carnage.
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July 27th, 2011 at 1:09 PM EST | by Oliver VanDervoort
Who doesn’t remember dumping a couple of tons of quarters into the video game version of the incredibly popular NBA Jam. Back in the 90’s and early 2000’s there was nary a game quite as popular as NBA Jam simply because there was no other game that looked and acted quite like this one. The giant heads, the over excited announcer, the crazy slam dunks that would literally make your opponent go flying across the screen as you posterized him. Now all that action is back, only it is all on the iPad.
Actually, NBA Jam has been around on the iOS for quite a while, but the newest version is even more loyal to the game that video and console gamers so fell in love with. The best part about this particular game is that the graphics that show a tiny body and a big head might actually be a little better on the iPad screen than they were when you were playing in your neighborhood arcade. Everything else is virtually identical, as you can choose a particular team you want to take to the title, with the need to beat every other team as part of the path to victory. The players are authentic and before each matchup, you can pick any two players from whatever team you would like with the same old emphasis that the best way to win is to find one shooter and one shot blocker on the squad.
One of the coolest features of this particular version of the game is that you can also go out and use some old times, such as the Lakers’ James Worthy to help you down your road to glory, should you win enough games to unlock him. When you start the game, you will go through a tutorial that will show you the basic aspects of the game, including how to race past your opponents and slam dunk without getting that ball slapped back in your face. Once you have finished this mode, you can choose to either go down the old classic championship path, or go into the “Play now” mode in which you just choose the team you want to play as, the team you want to play against and who you want to play with.
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July 26th, 2011 at 2:24 PM EST | by Oliver VanDervoort
If you have never heard of the video service known as Ustream, you should really check it out. The service is quite a bit like YouTube, except that instead of massive amounts of little videos littering the site and making it impossible to navigate and easily find what you are looking for, Ustream is far more organized. While YouTube is definitely the king of the internet streaming video service, Ustream is the comely prince who just might dethrone the crown before his appointed time.
If Ustream really is going to try and take the title of best streaming internet video service provider they just took a giant step with the release of their own iPad app. While YouTube has had an iPad app out basically since the iPad’s inception, there really wasn’t anything all that new and different about it. You could simply watch the same videos that you could watch on your desktop or laptop, only you could do it on the go, if you had the 3G service. Perhaps this is why it has taken so long for Ustream to follow suit.
Perhaps that particular company knew that there really wasn’t a big demand for yet another site that simply allowed you to watch other people’s videos no matter how good that content is. Even if you aren’t putting together your own Ustream … stream, there are plenty of other people who have worked hard to put together net shows that are well worth the lack of money they are charging to use the site. One of the better aspects of Ustream is that this is no longer a nice little niche site that only has people extolling their personal opinions on things you really don’t care about. The site streams broadcasting from well known sources like CBS News, EA Sports developers, Marvel Comics, NASA, The UFC Fighting League and many, many more. What you can then do, is put together your own reactions to the announcements and events the site shows and allow other people to discuss these topics no matter where they are located.
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July 26th, 2011 at 10:06 AM EST | by Oliver VanDervoort
Perhaps this should be a bit of a hint at just how badly iPad users want a fully functional Facebook app on their tablet PCs. While the Facebook for iPhone app has been around for a little while now, there is yet to be a truly, Facebook approved app that doesn’t have some sort of shortcoming. Sure there are plenty of different iPad apps that purport to allow you to access Facebook on the iPad, but all of those don’t quite offer the kind of Facebook experience you can have on your laptop or desktop browser and that is getting the goat of several iPad users.
It appears that iPad user don’t need to fear and that their wait will soon be over as users of the iPhone Facebook app have recently found that there is also an iPad app hidden in the programming of the iPhone app and that apparently particular bit of programming can actually be accessed with a fairly easy tweak. According to multiple sources, this would actually be the easiest little hack yet of an iPhone or iPad app as all you have to do is switch over the UIDeviceFamily setting to 2 and the app will suddenly be seen as a native iPad app.
There are of course several drawbacks to this particular approach as doing something like this certainly qualifies as going beyond what the original programming language intended. This is a big no-no for Apple and because of this, in order to change the language that way you will need a jail broken iPad in order to view the app. On the other hand, there are plenty of people out there who feel as though there are already enough good reasons to jailbreak their iOS devices and this just adds one more.
One blogger, who has been working with the “new” app after he discovered the original “bug””, MG Ziegler of TechCrunch says that this particular workaround isn’t a matter of simply getting around the design, but that the design was clearly meant to eventually have an iPad app. Siegler is on record as saying that the navigation using the iPad is “great” and that the photos that are viewable in the app are really sharp and clear, adding fuel to the fire that this was the framework for a new iPad app, even before it was discovered.
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