iPhone

New images of the iPad mini have surfaced on the French website nowhereelse.fr. Feast your eyes on these pictures of what appears to be a fully assembled, fully functional iPad mini.
 
                    
 
Read on and you will see in the following images, early pre-production cases for the iPhone 5, the iPod mini and the current generation iPad, alongside the current generation iPhone 4S. The infographic gives a good sense of the relative sizes of the various devices by using two devices most of us are quite familiar with, to represent the sizes of the two devices we’ve never seen.

 

 

After months of anticipation and rumored development, Lifeproof, (arguably one of the best protective case manufacturers for iDevices) has produced, and now released, their version of the award-winning Lifeproof case, for the iPad 2 and 3rd generation models.

 

Called the “nüüd”, this new, completely submersible iPad case is a revolution of design and functionality. This cleverly designed case provides a high level of defense for our precious iPads, unlike anything else on the market.

I've dedicated several articles (latest one HERE) to converting videos into MP4 (M4V / MOV) files so that they can be played back by the H.264 decoder of even older-generation iDevices. In the current one, I elaborate on how how you can play the output files with the built-in, stock Videos application. This article also belong to my Multimedia article series, in which I plan to publish a “Streaming multimedia over your local Wi-Fi” in the next few days and, then, finally, the real Multimedia bible.

In the last few days, I've participated in several discussion threads in the Phone Cameras / Tablets & Apps forum of DPReview. (See for example THIS, THIS and THIS). In order not to have to repeat the same facts again and again in future discussions, I've decided to dedicate a complete article to the question of using the iPad as a photo frame.

I have a second-generation Apple TV set-top box, and really enjoy using AirPlay to stream movies from my iPad to my 42-inch HDTV. It's fun how simple it is. If you have an iOS device and Apple TV on the same WiFi network, you simply start playing a video and tap a button that gives you the option of playing the movie on your TV instead of your iPad. If you need to go out and want to continue watching the movie, you simply toggle back to the iPad and continue watching.

It's nice to see an app by fellow blogger Todd Bernhard, president of No Tie software, win an award at CES. Getting recognition was AutoVerbal Pro Talking Soundboard, a $9.99 app that allows people to communicate who are unable to speak due to conditions such as stroke, surgery, cerebral palsy, and autism. The app has hundreds of photo buttons representing common words or phrases. Users can also program a variety of buttons to speak custom messages. In addition, users can type anything and it will be spoken using text-to-speech.

Every once in a while I find FaceTime, Apple’s most excellent video call feature, to be very helpful. There are occasions when I just can’t get in the same room with a client, and FaceTime is a great alternative to just a phone call.

As a form of videoconferencing, it saves lots of time and money by eliminating travel and all the expenses associated with that. Normally I use my iPad because the screen is bigger and it’s easy to keep stationary, but sometimes I have to use my iPhone. FaceTime is a bit challenging in general, but particularly so on the iPhone—not because of the technology, but because of the potential for mishaps.

I've always liked ­playing on my mobile devices, even back in the Pocket PC / Windows Mobile / Palm OS days. They revitalize me quite a lot, particularly after a hard, exhausting day.

Playing without physical controls (buttons), only using the touchscreen, is pretty hard. This includes a lot of game types, particularly ones where quick direction changes are needed and / or you can't make the smallest mistake and must be absolutely sure even the smallest movements on the directional pads (D-pad for short) is registered. In games like these, physical D-pad / button feedback is of extreme importance.

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