Apple iPad | Gear Diary

Jailbreak Your iPad, and Suddenly VOiP Apps Make Sense

Jailbreak At Your Own Risk. We Are NOT Recommending It. We just did it ourselves and are telling you about it. A jailbreak that works on the current iPhone and iPad was released this morning. Larry gave Judie & me the heads-up that he was jailbreaking his iPhone; it took four seconds. I jumped in and jailbroke my iPad 3G. Judie is about to do her iPad, too. (The things we do for you on this site … 😉 ) We quickly got to work employing Categories to reduce the number of Springboard pages. Larry did some other mods,…

How to Do It Yourself!

Apple 3G iPad on EDGE Using a T-Mobile SIM? Here’s How

If you were grandfathered into a low-priced T-Mobile data plan (remember the $5.99/month deal?), if you don’t mind EDGE speeds, and if don’t want to pay an extra $30/month to use the AT&T iPad data plan, this DIY hack may be just what you have been looking for. Granted, you won’t be able to pop your T-Mo SIM back into your phone, but why let that stop you? iPadInsider has posted a DIY hack that they say will make your T-Mobile SIM work on your Apple iPad … DISCLAIMER: We have not tested this, so this information may be inaccurate…

eBooks, Editorials

Don’t Mess with Amazon

Lately, book pricing is a better drama than daytime soap operas. While the publishers have thrown their undying love and affection towards Apple, Amazon has been quietly maintaining their dominant position. Time and again, the publishers complain bitterly about ebook and book pricing, but the reality is they need Amazon far, far, more than they need Apple. And Amazon knows it. Reason one why you shouldn’t cross Amazon: Penguin has been a holdout on the agency pricing for ebooks, so they’ve been MIA in the Kindle store. Amazon has clearly learned from the disastrous showdown with Macmillan, and they found…

Editorials

iPad- Like A Rorschach Ink Blot You’ll See In It What You Want To See…

I was at my physician’s yesterday. When he walked into the room his first words were… “So how’s the iPad?” (Yes even my doctors know what a tech geek I am.) I told him I love it… and I pulled it out of my bag. Then he asked me the question that has been asked over and over again, “What’s the point of it? What’s the purpose of this device? I don’t get it.” Unlike the radio DJs with whom I spoke last week (here and here) his questions weren’t statements. He actually was asking a question and wanted an…

Reviews

Multitasking for iPad Review

When the iPad was first announced, the one missing feature which bothered me more than any other was the lack of multitasking. However, for me multitasking is the wrong word. What I want on the iPad is what I like to call “multiviewing.” I could honestly care less about being able to listen to Pandora Radio while browsing the web. The iPad has a big, beautiful screen and what I want is to be able to open up a few applications and be able to view them side by side, all at the same time. With all the cool multi-touch…

Reviews

Follow Friday App for iPhone

If you use Twitter, chances are you’re familiar with the tradition that is #Follow Friday. For those of you who aren’t, every Friday Twitter users compose a Tweet to their followers which consists of a list of the “cool” people they follow, and it serves to suggest that they follow them too. While I do like the concept it, can become taxing to compose these weekly Tweets, trying to remember who you shouted out the week before, who did for you, etc. The Follow Friday application, available in the iTunes App Store for 99 cents takes all the guess-work out…

eBooks, Reviews

Books on the iPad: Comparing the Printed Page to ePub and PDFs

PDF. ePub. Kindle. iBooks. eBooks. Nook. eInk. Web Browser. Laptop. Audiobooks. For over 10 years, I have been trying to move to an all-electronic workflow for reading and consuming books, especially technical books. It started when I was a consultant traveling in planes to a variety of locations all over the US and internationally. Even when I was working locally, I had a 3+ hour commute daily for a number of years. One of the first things I did was switch to listening to audiobooks (via Audible) for my long daily commute via car. It not only kept me more…

eBooks, Editorials

The App-ification of eBooks

One of the arguments that has risen out of the “iPad as an ebook reader” debate is the idea that books, as a platform for pure reading, are dead. That’s what Cody Brown argued in a guest column on Techcrunch, riffing off Paul Carr’s NSFW post. This concept that “everything is better as an app, with pictures and videos and SHINY HAPPYS” is, in my opinion, totally wrong. Are books going to change? Absolutely, and there are many ways in which they will continue to evolve and grow. However, the basic root of a book is going to remain the…

How to Do It Yourself!

How To View PDF Files on iPad

When Apple announced the iPad, I immediately imagined that it would be a superior way to read PDF books in a tablet-style format. On the Apple iPad Specs page, there is a single mention of PDF support for the iPad – in the Mail application as an attachment. However, there must be a way to view PDF files on the iPad natively, right? Let’s walk through two main ways currently available to view PDF files on the iPad. Built-In PDF Viewing Mail Application – The iPad supports viewing PDF files that are sent as attachments via email in the Mail…

Editorials

Larry and Dan Serve Up Gear Chat #7

Dan and Larry take enough time away from their iPads to prepare Gear Chat #7- today’s topic… the iPad, iPhone OS 4.0 and assorted other goodies…

Editorials

How I Lost Over 6 lbs On The iPad Diet

One of the unexpected benefits of starting to use the iPad in place of my MacBook is that it has made me feel far lighter than ever before. No, I don’t mean “lighter” in a “techno-geeky I’m so happy to be using this magical device…” way. No, I mean lighter as in “using the iPad means I carry a lot less in my bag”. In fact I can now carry a far lighter bag now thanks to the iPad. I set out to figure how much weight I had “dropped” and even I am surprised. Here is a quick, rundown…

How to Do It Yourself!

So How DO You Actually Load Your Own Documents onto the iPad?

Having been one of the people in my social circle to have an iPad, I have been answering a lot of questions for others who don’t have an iPad, or that can’t be answered by playing with one directly. One of the most frequent questions I get is “How do you load PDFs (and other personal documents) onto the iPad?” If you look at the iPad by itself without a computer running iTunes, you can only explain this verbally. And it’s not the most intuitive process (in fact, not very Apple-like). So, rather than re-answer the same question multiple times,…

Editorials

Old Jews Telling Jokes- Yet Another Reason To Be Thankful For HTML 5

Here’s another reason to be thankful that websites are moving over to HTML 5 and passing by Flash… Old Jews Telling Jokes. My Catholic “cousin” (my mother’s best friend growing up hence adopted “cousin”) and I have been talking quite a bit about Apple’s new products. Well, more accurately, I’ve been asking questions and he’s been telling me that because he works for Apple he’s not allowed to answer any of them. 🙂 Now that the iPad is released, however, we can chat about how amazing it is… So two nights ago we were exchanging e-mails and I was telling…

Editorials

Another Day, Another iPad

photo credit: powerbooktrance Okay, okay. I’m weak – I admit it! I lasted nearly a week before I finally caved in, went down to Best Buy, and picked up an iPad which I now have been playing with for about 12 hours. So of course, I now have a few observations and because the world hasn’t had nearly enough iPad opinion pieces, I’m going to share with you! First – the device and it’s potential really are amazing. Despite all the hype and the nonsense and even a few drawbacks, I’m really impressed with this thing. Although I’m…

eBooks, Editorials

eBook Competition Gets Fierce

The iPad has landed! But that’s far from the only bit of ebook news this week. Things are really heating up, so let’s dive right in! First, the Association of American Publishers released their estimates for 2009 book sales. The bad news is that overall book sales declined 1.8%…but the silver lining is that ebook sales GREW 176.6%!!! It’s very exciting stuff, but ebooks still aren’t big enough to carry the whole book industry. Overall book sales were $23.8 billion, and ebook sales only made up $313.2 million. It’s a start, but a small one. If you’re comparison shopping for…

Reviews

Clear Coat for iPad Professional Install

As Dan so eloquently pointed out to the entire Internet earlier today, I cracked. Yes, I ordered a iPad 3G, and yes I made fun of Dan who ordered both a WiFi version and a 3G version because he could not wait the 3-4 weeks for the release of the 3G. Well I lasted all of about 48 hours waiting, and today I went out and picked myself a WiFi version of the iPad. I simply could not sit idly by while Judie and Dan had all the fun. The first place I went after picking up the device was…

Reviews

iPad + Dragon Dictation + Apple iPad Case = Mobile Desktop

When the Apple iPad case arrived a little while ago, I was not initially impressed. It is rather thin, gets in the way of docking the device, and the edges are a bit on the sharp side. Moreover, I am not in love with the overall “feel” of the material they used. That noted, I didn’t immediately box it up for return because it is nice to finally have a way to protect the device a bit. Then I tried the case propped up in landscape mode. I was impressed. The case holds it at a perfect angle for typing….

News

An Amazing iPad Video Unboxing

No, there aren’t any Ninjas as we saw with the Nexus One unboxing posted not too long ago; instead there is sthttp://www.tuaw.com/2010/04/05/found-footage-self-unboxing-ipad/ark simplicity, great music, and amazing animation as the iPad sheds itself of its retail confines … seemingly without any human assistance. Enjoy! iPad – Unboxing Video from Brian Stark on Vimeo via TUAW.

News

Can You Hear Me Now? Dan’s NPR Debut

Dan got a chance to call into NPR today; the discussion was quite lively, and he had a good time explaining why he disagreed with their “expert”. Watch for him at the 6:50 mark. Dan and Gear Diary on NPR Some notes that Dan sent after the fact … In all seriousness I’m a little bit surprised to hear so-called experts still making claims that the iPad is simply a media consumption device. The whole point of the iPad is that it’s pretty much a blank slate (sorry for the pun). The device is going to be what you make…

News

Who Says The iPad Cannot Be Used As A Phone?!?

A great deal has been made about the inability to use the iPad as a phone. The argument is, who wants to use something this big as a phone? Well to be honest, me. The fact of the matter is to be able to make a phone call using the iPad as a speakerphone would be a great thing so I decided that I would try it out. First I loaded the Skype application. It’s currently only available in the iPhone version but, as you know, iPhone applications work on the iPad. I tried it out and discovered that it…

News

The iPad Makes For A Busy UPS Saturday

When I was with Elana yesterday expressing my exuberance over my anticipated arrival of the iPad, she suggested that I spend some time with the UPS driver since, according to all reports, there was an amazing amount of logistics involved in getting all the iPads out. I thought it was a good idea. So when my iPad finally arrived late this afternoon — okay actually it was early this afternoon but it felt like late this afternoon — I asked the UPS driver if he could spend a few minutes talking with me. He responded that he would be happy…