Atari Arcade for iPad Review

By now you may have seen ThinkGeek’s iCade, the cabinet that transforms your iPad into a legitimate arcade. Well, Discovery Bay Games has just produced a new take on the “iPad Arcade”. The Atari Arcade for iPad 1 and iPad 2 is not an entire cabinet, but rather a more practical and affordable arcade board for iPad to pop into. It features a joystick, four arcade buttons, and a clean retro design. Download Atari’s Greatest Hits app and you can enjoy all of the classics like Asteroids, Centipede, and Missile Command.

The Atari Arcade for iPad is passive and doesn’t require it’s own power source; it’s powered by iPad. The only downside to this is that it uses a little extra iPad battery and there’s no way to charge iPad while it’s attached. Just like the classic arcades, there’s a nice sized joy stick and four big buttons with good spring back action. There’s a regular 30-pin connector for iPad to dock into. On both sides is a slide lock to secure iPad into place. While the Atari Arcade would be best played on a flat surface, it’s portable and light enough to play it on your lap, or even your stomach if you’re laying down. There are rubber grips on the bottom so it won’t slide around a surface during intense game play.

The Atari Arcade relies on the Atari Greatest Hits app. Outside of this app, the joystick and buttons don’t do anything. The Greatest Hits apps brings you 100 classic Atari games, with Mission Command for free. All 100 games costs $14.99, or you can buy any of the 25 game packs for $1.00.

The arcade games include: Asteroids, Battlezone, Black Widow, Centipede, Crystal Castles, Gravitar, Liberator, Lunar Lander, Major Havoc, Millipede, Missile Command, Pong, Red Baron, Space Duel, Super Breakout, Tempest, Warlords. Then there is also all sorts of Atari 2600 games like Backgammon, BlackJack, Bowling, Casino, Codebreaker, Golf, Gravitar, Hangman, Home Run, Math Gran Prix, Chess, Pinball, and more.

SlingPlayer For iPad

If you’ve been rocking out to SlingPlayer on your laptop, this is pretty good news. SlingPlayer for iPad is now available for $29.99 from the app store. Yeah, you read that right. $29.99. But hopefully if you love Sling the way most people love Sling, this will be a small price to pay.

Not much else to say. If you’ve used SlingPlayer, or any other media player/DVR for that matter, you’re looking at the same features. Sling, obviously, allows you to transfer video from your own set-top-box to any other device, including browsers. It works with the Slingbox SOLO or PRO-HD.

Sling Media, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation (Nasdaq: SATS), today announced the availability of the SlingPlayer Mobile™ player for the Apple iPad. Available for purchase on the iTunes App Store, SlingPlayer Mobile software for iPad lets Slingbox® owners extend their living room TV experience to their iPad and takes advantage of the iPad’s high-resolution, 9.7-inch LED-backlit display for great video quality. The revamped program guide uses the iPad’s intuitive native interface, and a recent channels feature puts a viewer’s recent channels at his fingertips.

Product Page

Evernote for iPhone and iPad Update

Evernote for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch has been updated to include support in preparation for iOS 4.2 when it arrives sometime this month.

As well as supporting the new iOS, particularly multi tasking on the iPad, Evernote has also had a few new features added to it to make more useful than before.

New features in the Evernote iOS 4.2 update include the ability to add multiple photos, up to 5, to notes created. Audio notes have also been increased allowing up to 90 minute recordings to be captured if needed.

As well as the audio and photo sections getting an update, there’s also support within other apps such as Safari to open up PDF documents (and other types) in Evernote.

Evernote is a free app available from iTunes with a paid subscription model should you choose to want more transfer allowances each month.

Apple ipad Pre-Order through Amazon.com

Amazon.com has a signup page where you can be notified on when the Apple Ipad will become available for Pre-Order. If the Apple Ipad sells like the Iphone did, it will be a smart move to Pre-order it if you really want it.

Apple Ipad Pre-Order Page

A truly revolutionary device, the Apple iPad is perfect for your mobile computing lifestyle, including browsing the Web, reading and sending e-mail, enjoying photos, watching videos, listening to music, playing games, and much more. It features a brilliant 9.7-inch, LED-backlit display with IPS technology that delivers crisp, clear images and consistent color and a highly precise, capacitive Multi-Touch display that’s Amazingly accurate and responsive–whether you’re scrolling Web pages or playing games.

Measuring just 0.5 inches thin and weighing a mere 1.5 pounds, the iPad is easy to carry and use anywhere. There’s also a slight curve to the back. Which makes it easy to pick up and comfortable to hold. This version of the Apple iPad comes with 16 GB of internal flash memory and ultra-fast Wireless-N Wi-Fi networking.

The iPad runs almost all apps from the App Store, including apps already purchased for your iPhone or iPod touch. And the iPad comes with 12 new innovative apps designed especially for the iPad, including Mail, Photos, Maps, Notes, and YouTube.

Reading and sending e-mail is on iPad’s large screen and almost full-size “soft” keyboard. Import photos from a Mac, PC or digital camera, then see them organized as albums, and enjoy and share them using iPad’s elegant slideshows. Watch movies, TV shows and YouTube–all in HD.

The iPad syncs with iTunes just like the iPhone and iPod touch, using a standard Apple 30-pin to USB cable, so you can sync all of your contacts, photos, music, movies, TV shows, applications and more from your Mac or Windows-based PC. Other features include up to 10 hours of battery life, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR connectivity, and built-in speakers plus 3.5mm headphone jack.

Apple Ipad Pre-Order Page

iPad CNET Review

It’s hard to argue the fact that this week’s Apple iPad launch disappointed the tech crowd, and not just because of that inexplicable name. Despite its lovely design, beefier core apps, and new e-book features and store, the iPad is hampered by a well-documented string of missing features: a camera, 16:9 support, Flash support (seriously?), multitasking, SD card slot, HDMI or high-res video output support, USB ports, GPS, and so on. Plus, it’s exclusive to the AT&T network (again: seriously?) in this iteration, the pricing scheme is overly complex, and while I’m not sure it’s genuinely overpriced, it’s nevertheless expensive, and you can’t imagine the price going much lower without crashing into the 64GB iPod Touch and making the iPad look a lot like a sucker’s buy.

OK, but all that said, I think we all need to take a deep breath and remember: it’s not that the iPad is a failure. It’s just a product ahead of its time. No one should actually buy this iPad–between its inevitable first-generation bugs, fulfillment problems, and buyer’s remorse over added features and price drops, it’s heartbreak waiting to happen. Try to think of the iPad as, like, a proof of concept. A concept car, even. A work in progress, really.

Now, I know tablet PCs are nothing new, and I know Microsoft’s been trying to get the idea off the ground for a decade now. But this is the concept design for the e-reader/media device we’ll all own in three to five years–when every publication is available as a feature-rich, interactive reading experience, when Apple (or someone else) has introduced the Newsstand app store with some actual newspaper and magazine content partners, and when prices are in the $100 to $200 range and 3G wireless is not a $130 add-on (SERIOUSLY?), and the idea of consuming just 250MB of data a month on a true multimedia device is recognized as the belly-busting joke that it is.

Right now, the iPad is a product in search of a market. It’s kind of poorly implemented, feature-wise; it’s been poorly articulated, market-wise; and it’s hard to imagine why on earth you’d ever need such a thing at such a price. But I think there will be a market for a touch-screen, all-in-one device that’s more than a Kindle and less than a laptop, and it’s easy to imagine getting all my media on one slick Internet-connected device that also works as one heck of a pretty digital picture frame.

Here’s what Apple needs to do: stop trying to convince me that an iPad is better than a Netbook. That’s not the point. I have plenty of things in my life that can bring me a calendar, music, photos, and touch-screen painting. I don’t need more of that (no matter how pretty you make it). Don’t try to put the iPad between a laptop and a smart phone–that positioning doesn’t make any sense to anyone, and no one needs that.

Start pitching this thing as the actual replacement for paper. Get some serious content deals with periodicals and papers, and maybe even offer a combined subscription service that lets you choose 8 or 10 papers and magazines for a flat fee. Get the bookstore up to Amazon stock levels, put an e-ink/LCD hybrid display in the next version, and get serious about what this really is: a multimedia reader. (Also, get your product line and pricing in order and stop trying to act like a 3G chip really costs an extra $130.) See you in three to five years!

iPAD Review Video

Last night Apple launched its iPad but for many people it was a disappointment. During its launch there was more silence than applause for the Apple product that should be called as super gadget. Steve Jobs had commented on it as being better than laptop and a smart phone. But without flash it does not fulfill the promise of being better than laptop and a smart phone. After the launch of this iPad the market was so much disappointed that its share frequently fell down. The disappointment of the people is also related to the fact that AT&T is the sole 3G carrier for the iPad.
Following are the features that are missing in the iPad due to which it gained so much disappointment.

• iPad USB ports – USB ports in this iPad are absent, so a person can’t plug in his USB drive to transfer photos to it.
• iPad Flash – As Apple won’t approve Flash player so no flash support is present there.
• iPad Multi-tasking – Multi-tasking is unacceptable for a Tablet having a starting price-point of $499 so it is not present in it.
• iPad Camera – No camera is present on the front or back of the iPad.

Apple iPad Accessories Details

A gadget as svelte as the iPad needs to trim a few odds and ends to deliver that lightweight, streamlined form factor. And if you’d like to get the most out of your wunder-gadget (or oversized iPod Touch), you’ll be buying those odds and ends back piecemeal.

Apple’s iPad site doesn’t offer much information or release dates for the recently announced accessories, but expect the vibrant third-party market to step in and offer cheaper alternatives once the device is available.

iPad Keyboard Dock – $69

Steve Jobs may have dismissed the Netbook, but many road warriors are going to need something a little more tactile than an onscreen keyboard for hammering out prose. Someone at Apple agrees: the iPad Keyboard Dock is arguably the first must-have accessory.

Much like a regular dock, it’ll charge your iPad. You’ll also be able to use it to sync to your computer, and offers an audio jack to connect your iPad to a proper stereo. It also includes a 30-pin connector, so you’ll be able to connect iPad accessories, too. But the most important feature is the integrated full-size keyboard, which bears a striking similarity to the Apple Keyboard, bundled with iMac purchases.

iPad Dock – $29

If you think the onscreen keyboard will suffice, plan on picking up a Bluetooth keyboard, or you’d just like a spare dock for the office, you can always buy a plain old charging dock. It offers the same features — the ability to sync, an audio jack and 30-pin connector, and charging capabilities, but doesn’t include a keyboard.

iPad Case – $39

The iPad’s tablet form factor presents a very real ergonomic dilemma: how exactly will you hold this thing for extended periods of time? Will you hunch over a table while watching a film, or be restricted to typing on your lap?

The iPad Case offers one solution: a triangular kickstand props the tablet up at comfortable angles — upright for watching media, and inclined for typing. While it looks like leather, it’s reportedly made from a soft, rubbery microfiber material. Not your style? Fret not — cases are one of the most popular accessories, and you’ll be drowning in options long before the device is actually starts shipping.

iPad Camera Connection Kit – $29

Even the lowliest of netbooks include a USB port and SD card reader — a pair of dongles will provide similar functionality for your iPad. The Camera Connection Kit consists of a pair of dongles that will plug in to your dock, or into the 30-pin connector port at the base of your iPad.

One dongle will allow you to import photos directly from your camera’s USB cable, while the other will let you pull content from an SD card. Juggling the pair of to handle such mundane tasks is disappointing, to say nothing of having to pony up $30 for the inconvenience. But such is the price of skinny, light tech.

Apple iPad Specs

Apple has published a page of iPad specs detailing the capacities, dimensions, and features of the device. According to the page, the device is 9.56″ tall and 7.47″ wide, with a depth of just 0.5″ and a weight of 1.5 pounds. Units with the 3G option weigh 1.6 pounds.

The screen has a resolution of 1024 x 768 (132 pixels per inch) on a 9.7″ (diagonal) display. The screen itself resists fingerprints through an oleophobic coating. It will play 720p HD video at 30 frames per second, though true 720p resolution is 1280 x 720.

Apple is offering the iPad in either a 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB capacities, all of which are built around a 1GHz Apple A4 processor. The device has up to 10 hours of battery life between charges with up to one month of standby time.

It includes an iPhone/iPod Dock connector, a 3.5mm stereo headphone jack, and has a built-in microphone and speakers. WiFi + 3G versions of the unit also include a SIM card tray.

The device includes a built-in digital compass like the iPhone 3GS, as well as an accelerometer and an ambient light sensor. The WiFi + 3G model includes assisted GPS, as well as cellular data connection through 3G.

Mac system requirements

* Mac computer with USB 2.0 port
* Mac OS X v10.5.8 or later
* iTunes 9.0 or later
* iTunes Store account
* Internet access

Windows system requirements

* PC with USB 2.0 port
* Windows 7, Windows Vista; Windows XP Home or Professional with Service Pack 3 or later
* iTunes 9.0 or later
* iTunes Store account
* Internet access

Apple a4 cpu processor chip

Along with the iPad, the Apple chip has arrived.

Called the A4, (“A” presumably for Apple), the most obvious difference with the chip in the iPhone 3GS is speed. The iPad’s chip runs at 1GHz, compared to the estimated 600MHz (0.6GHz) of the iPhone 3GS. On Wednesday, at the event in San Francisco, the A4 was billed as “the most advanced chip” Apple has done yet. While fast, it’s also frugal with power. “The A4 chip is so power efficient that it helps iPad get up to 10 hours of battery life,” according to Apple’s iPad Web page.

By definition, the A4 is a system-on-a-chip, or SOC, that integrates the main processor, graphics silicon, and other functions like the memory controller on one piece of silicon–not unlike what Intel is trying to achieve with its future “Moorestown” Atom processor. And a similar SOC chip architecture is already used in the iPhone and other smartphones, such as Google’s Nexus One and Motorola’s Droid.

Based on what Apple has achieved with the iPhone 3GS, the chip should deliver a snappy interface. Of course, as in any 3G smartphone or laptop with a 3G connection, the 3G service can often be the weak link in performance, not the processor.

And speaking of 3G, the iPad will offer two AT&T plans. One is 250MB of data every month for $15; the other, an unlimited plan for $30 per month. Note that in the iPhone 3GS, Infineon supplies the 3G chip.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs called it the “best (Web) browsing experience you’ve ever had. A whole Web page right in front of you that you can manipulate with your fingers. Way better than a laptop,” in a video of the event streamed by CNET. That browsing experience, of course, will rely on the chip’s ability to handle the background tasks as users access images and video.

Ipad Release Date

The Apple iPad release date is set to April 2010 and will sport Apple’s new ARM-based processor with integrated GPU.

Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs, finally unveiled the Apple iPad during an event today. The name of the new tablet was revealed only a few days ago, and aims to separate itself from tablet computers such as Microsoft’s new Slate PC category. Leaks have prepared us all for an “iPhone on steroids” and we recently estimated the release date to be April 2010. The “iPhone on steroids” has turned out to be a good description of the new Apple iPad, and the release date will indeed be April 2010.

According to Steve Jobs, the reason for its existence is to beat both smartphones and laptops when it comes to the categories in bold throughout this story. Of course, with such a mission the Apple iPad will likely walk down the same road as the iPhone: Either you’ll grow to love the Apple iPad, or you’ll return it and hope that the netbook category will soon be offering optimized software and services too.

So, we all know what a netbook can and can’t do for the time being, and now the time has finally come to figure out what the Apple iPad can and can’t do:

Browsing

The Safari browser on the Apple iPad is just as capable as the iPhone browser. Steve Jobs pitches it as a way to see the full page you’re surfing on without zooming in and out, something you can obviously not do on the iPhone. There’s of course also landscape and portrait mode support, and the built-in accelerometer will take care of the switching for you. That being said, Apple is known to be a strong supporter of HTML5, and there’s no doubt that the Apple iPad is part of the company’s effort to get Web developers moving in the right direction in that regard. There’s no Flash or Silverlight support at the time of writing here.

Email

The Apple iPad offers a very nice presentation layout, and a large on-board QWERTY keyboard will appear when you need to enter text. Will the iPad beat a laptop keyboard? The iPad Keyboard Dock will be available as an accessory, offering a full-size traditional keyboard for those who need that.

Photos

Apple’s way of presenting photos is already highly acclaimed. Especially taking flick scrolling to this new level where it can be combined with a larger screen real estate, should really give you the feeling of an “iPhone on steroids”. We’re sure it’s going to be a whole lot easier to bring out old memories when friends comes to visit after the Apple iPad hits store shelves than before. Showing photos on a laptop is fine, but the Apple iPad will basically act like an advanced photo frame in that regard. There’s likely no smartphone or laptop that’ll be able to beat that experience.

Video & Music

Videos on the Apple iPad will obviously be a challenge when it comes to power. With built-in access to the iTunes store, as well as YouTube and YouTube HD streaming being available, it’ll be easy to throw your smartphone or laptop away in favor of the Apple iPad. You can play movies, TV shows and music videos. When it comes to music playback, we guess playing those music videos will be the most alluring part here, as the iPad would obviously not beat the iPhone when it comes to portability and battery life.

Games

A large part of the iPhone apps out there are games and the Apple iPad will run any iPhone app out-of-box without modifications. To take advantage of the iPad’s large screen, one can also double the pixels on-the-fly and run apps in full screen mode. Popular iPhone developers will offer optimized iPad apps pretty quickly to take full advantage of the larger screen though, and an Apple iPad Developer SDK was released today to ensure that every developer out there can offer optimized iPad apps. The app store will be an integral part of the iPad.

Some high-def games will be available from companies such as Electronics Arts from day one. EA’s Need for Speed Shift will for instance offer a range of new touch controls besides taking advantage of the obvious graphics power and display technology hidden in the Apple iPad.

eBooks & Newspapers

Of course, eReaders will never look the same after you’ve seen what type of content the Apple iPad can offer. New York Times have created a showcase of its newspaper, which will for sure become a popular service on the iPad. In stead of holding a static newspaper in front of you, you can simply load up New York Times on the iPad, boasting multimedia such as in-line video streaming. Yes, you read that right. It’s that simple to reinvigorate newspapers, as long as you have the world’s largest gadget maker enabling it, of course. If you’re an independent sketch artist, Apple will of course also provide you with an application called Brushes. We guess its potential is self-explanatory.

There’s also a new iBook Store, which will basically compete directly with certain other eBook stores out there. Apple has partnered up with Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan and Hachette Book Group, and eBooks will be available in the ePub format.

Steve Jobs has also pushed his army to create iWorks for Apple iPad, and will sell it for $10 each (Pages, Numbers and Keynote). A calendar for scheduling is also available out-of-box.

Apple iPad Specifications

The Apple iPad is 0.5 inches thick (just as slim as the iPhone) and weighs in at 1.5 pounds. It sports a 9.7-inch IPS display and offers “full capacitive multi-touch”. Compared to TFT displays, IPS displays require a brighter backlight, subsequently drawing more power. In return, Apple iPad users will get a wider viewing angle (178 degrees to be exact) and accurate color reproduction. The Apple iPad is the first consumer device to take advantage of an IPS display (LG.Philips is likely the brain behind this screen).

The Apple iPad will be available in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB versions. It also boasts 3G, Wi-Fi 802.11n and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR connectivity, speaker, microphone and an Apple 30-pin port. Apple promises a battery life of up to 10 hours and over a month of standby time.

The bomb shell as far as specifications is concerned: The 1GHz Apple A4 chip. It’s an ARM SoC with an integrated graphics processing unit (GPU) manufactured by P.A. Semi. Apple acquired P.A. Semi back in April 2008, and this is the first Apple chip to appear. We guess it’s just a matter of time before Apple’s iPhone will be powered by an Apple chip as well. In other words, companies like Qualcomm and Intel doesn’t seem to get much fun out of Apple’s new mobile adventure in the future.

Price and availability

The Apple iPad Wi-Fi models will start shipping worldwide in late March 2010 ($500 for 16GB version, $600 for 32GB, and $700 for 64GB).

The Apple iPad 3G models will start shipping in the U.S. and selected countries in April 2010 ($630 for 16GB version, $730 for 32GB, and $830 for 64GB). International pricing and worldwide availability will be announced at a later date. Apple expects to have international carrier deals ready by June 2010.

The Apple iPad 3G models (7.2Mbps HSDPA) will be sold with an unlocked micro SIM card, but Apple has a new prepaid data plan deal with AT&T Wireless: $30 per month for unlimited data or $15 per month for up to 250MB. AT&T Wi-Fi hotspots will be free to use when signing up for a data plan with AT&T. There’s no contract and you can cancel it at anytime. The AT&T plans can also be activated on the Apple iPad.

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