iPad (2021)

As part the International keynote presentations at IFA this year, AMD exec and president of the HSA foundation, Phil Rogers, took the stage to give an update on the current state of the not-for-profit alliance. For those of you unfamiliar with the foundation, HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture), is described as “a heterogeneous compute ecosystem, rooted in industry standards, for combining scalar processing on the CPU with parallel processing on the GPU while enabling high bandwidth access to memory and high application performance at low power consumption.”

While the addition of Samsung, among other partners Texas Instruments, ARM, AMD, and Imagination Technologies, was the big news of the day for most, a short demo by partner Apical was what really caught our attention.

Apical’s “Assertive Display” technology is already present in a few devices, such as Sharp’s AQUOS PHONE SH-01D, but during its demo for the HSA keynote, Apical showed off the tech working on an iPad…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQUTHGE3qs0]
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Gx5MA1tBfKY

Vietnamese website Tinhte, which has a solid record of procuring pre-release Apple products, has headphones that it claimed  the new iPhone will come with next month. The current iOS device headphones have remained largely unchanged since the launch of the original iPhone in 2007, and many complain they fit poorly or fall out often (guilty!). Apple also makes in-ear headphones that many consider over-priced and under-performing (also guilty!).

These headphones appear to be a hybrid of the two current versions that Apple offers. It is not certain if they will be offered with the product or as a new add-on accessory.

Some stills from the website are below, including the comparison to current iPhone headsets, and the telltale “Designed in California, Made in Viet Nam” written along the cable:

If the accessory in the video above turns out to be legit, it would certainly indicate Apple is making some improvements to its headset…or at least trying.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fctZx8_Naa8]

We had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with Sharp today at its IGZO display booth. While they would not say which Apple products would incorporate their new displays, they did seem to insinuate these were the best displays on the market, and Apple is the type of company that uses the best displays.

So why are these the best?

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ZAGG, perhaps best known for its invisibleShield screen protector, is adding two new additions to its also popular lineup of keyboards and cases tonight with the unveiling of two super-thin Bluetooth keyboards designed specifically for iPad.  The keyboards, ZAGGKeys PRO for $99 and PRO Plus for $129, feature the usual iOS specific functions such as media playback and volume controls, copy and paste keys, as well as keys for the Home button, search, etc.

Think the backlighting might drain the battery? HA! If you use the keyboard for eight hours a day, you will get up to three weeks of normal use…and remember that is the backlit model! The keyboard will come in English, French, and German models at launch.

We got our hands on the new keyboards tonight at the ShowStoppers IFA press event and were quiet impressed with the overall build quality. They do not feel cheap (the opposite), which is not too surprising given ZAGG’s reputation of building military grade screen protectors and other quality protective accessories.

The two models are identical to one another, including a magnetic closure that allows it to act as a screen protector when not in use. However, an extra $20 will upgrade you to the Pro Plus model with a backlit keyboard, which is a feature that has noticeably been missing from the go-to iPad keyboards currently on the market.

Will Zagg leapfrog our current favorite ultrathin iPad keyboard from Logitech?

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNLbm7XP5qg]

LifeProof already made a splash with its water, dirt, snow, and shockproof cases for iPhone 4 and 4S ($54). Today, at the ShowStoppers IFA event in Berlin, we were able to get our hands on LifeProof’s latest creation: an iPad version of the popular Nüüd case. If you are unfamiliar, the Nüüd cases feature no screen protection (although there is now an optional display cover that doubles as a stand), but it instead protects your iPad from the elements by creating a seal around the perimeter of the display. The case is currently available for iPad 2 and 3 through the LifeProof website and bundled with the screen protector/stand for €127.53 ($160 USD). Go past the break for another video demo of the Nüüd case ‘skinny dipping’ (being submerged in water).

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Ah, the Genius Bar: It’s (mostly) free, it’s accessible, and nine out of 10 Apple product owners love it.

The latest research from NPD Group indicates folks are willing to buy multiple Apple devices primarily due to their pleasant experience at the Genius Bar. A whopping 90 percent, in fact, said they were “extremely or very satisfied” following their experience. The approval rate is primarily attributed to 88 percent of those Genius Bar consumers receiving complimentary service.

According to NPD Group’s Tech Services Study:

That service left almost all of the 40 percent of Apple owners who took their Apple devices to the Genius Bar very happy. Nearly 90 percent of consumers who used Apple’s tech service said they were extremely or very satisfied. In contrast, top 2 box satisfaction among all consumer service interactions was 78 percent. A major part of their satisfaction came from the fact that only a small percentage actually paid for their service. According to the report, 88 percent of Genius Bar consumers said their service was free compared to 78 percent of all consumers.

The majority of the support was for troubleshooting (37 percent), followed by product repair (28 percent), how-to support (18 percent), software installation/upgrade (11 percent), and product installation/set-up (7 percent).

Apple product consumers also approve the retail giant’s tech support offerings. Sixty percent of consumers claimed they were “somewhat or much more likely” to make another purchase following their experience, while another 31 percent admitted they had a “much more positive view” of the Cupertino, Calif.-based company after their service. However, as the study noted, “physical presence is key.” Fifty-three percent of consumers were extremely satisfied with in-store encounters versus other types of interactions, but 45 percent of younger consumers still preferred virtual communications.

These statistics are interesting, especially considering yesterday’s report from IFOAppleStore. It claimed then-COO Tim Cook and current CFO Peter Oppenheimer pushed former Apple Senior Vice President of Retail Ron Johnson toward revenues over customer satisfaction when then-CEO Steve Jobs was on medical leave in 2009. Moreover, Apple has maintained new policies —despite wide-spread criticism over recent retail layoffs— that reflect budget cuts with an emphasis on revenue. With this outlook, it surely won’t be long until tech support experiences start falling by the wayside.

NPD gathered responses from over 2,000 adults via an online survey in May 2012.

More stats are available in the press release below. 

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Apple just announced that Vice President of Mac Software Engineering Craig Federighi and Vice President of Hardware Engineering Dan Riccio will join CEO Tim Cook’s executive team as SVPs. Apple’s Executive Bio page updated thusly:

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Note: Apple currently has two SVPs of hardware engineering. Bob Mansfield announced his retirement in June but will instead stay to work on future products, while reporting to Cook.

The press releases and bio/pictures follow :

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=osRNt8ai9FM]

The World Ends with You: Solo Remix: Square Enix has reworked the title originally released for Nintendo DS in 2007 with an all new combat system, HD art, and new music. The $18 iOS port (and $19 iPad version) has made a few changes that hardcore fans of the game are not too pleased with, but overall first impressions have been positive.

Square Enix’s fresh-faced hit The New York Times called “one of the best role playing games ever designed for anything” has busted onto iOS in a big way… Enjoy the game in full HD on your Retina-enabled iPhone 4 or later device. Art and animation across the game has been redrawn just for this release, making combat a beautiful experience. This is how all 2D classics should look.

CNN app for iPad version 1.7: CNN’s iPad app, in addition to its official iPhone app, was updated today with the ability to follow the 2012 presidential race through CNN’s U.S. Election Center. The update also includes improved “easy-to-use navigation” for browsing stories and video.

Clueful: A few weeks back we mentioned that BitDefender’s iOS app for detecting apps that access private data was removed from the App Store without much explanation from Apple. Today the company has relaunched the Clueful app as a web app accessible from your iOS devices at Cluefulapp.com. The new web app will let you manually search for info on any given app, opposed to the previous app that would detect the apps running on your device.

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As you can probably see, we made some big changes to the look and feel of the site this weekend. The new design was put together by Get10Up.com and we want to thank Taylor, Jake and the rest of the team for getting it all into place and making this happen.

We did not hate the old 9to5 design, but we wanted to start from scratch on so many different aspects due to Retina devices proliferating and the move toward mobile. Some improvements you will notice:

1. All of the design elements are optimized for Retina displays. In addition, we are able to display images and video over 700 pixels wide in this new format (1,400 pixel Retina). This allows us to bring imagery and video clarity that has always been hard to deliver (without “open in a new window”). Our CMS/Hosting partners WordPress VIP are also jumping on the Retina train with new additions that will allow us to deliver Retina quality imagery without compromising load times for those without Retina displays.

2. Mobile. We have been through a bunch of mobile designs before, which we were not particularly fond of (and neither were you!), but last year we gave up and decided we were going to start fresh. If you are reading this on a mobile device, you will hopefully like the changes at hand. Desktop users: Have a look…or just resize your browser and notice how the responsive desktop elements fall away into a mobile experience.

[tweet https://twitter.com/inadarei/status/239805729941385216]

3. Load times. Even with Retina images and design elements, we wanted to bring load times down. The team at Get10Up was able to pull this off with their mastery of WordPress, CSS and some front- and back-end “magic.” No matter what device you are using, you should notice significant page load time improvement.

4. We are a blog and proud of it. Recently, many of the bigger blogs attempted to change formats from their roots in the reverse chronological format into something like a magazine or newspaper. We played with the idea, but we found that we really, truly enjoy the traditional blog format whether we’re on an iPhone, an iPad, or our Macs. With that said, we also enlarged our Top 4 Feature Stories to spread across the page. In addition, we are improving our “asides” as smaller, title-only lines on the front page. We love these for small, quick bits of news and hope you do too.

5. Hooray for Authors! We gave a little more space to Mark, Jordan, Elyse, Jake, Mike, and all of our contributors who do a great job of delivering Apple news, rumors, reviews, and opinion to you first. You will see their faces on stories so you will know who is delivering your news.

6. Sharing buttons: Nowhere and everywhere. We labored over the decision about whether to include sharing buttons. On one hand, they are very helpful when you want to share a post with your social networks. On the other hand, they take valuable load time, are ugly, and they get in the way of the flow of content.

We think we came up with an elegant compromise: There are no social buttons anywhere on the site, but sharing buttons will load with counts (now including Pinterest!) if you hit the ‘share’ text on top or ‘share this’ text on the bottom of a post. They are a little harder to find, but we think you will have no problem sharing if you should decide.

7. You! As you’ve probably noticed (see @inadarei above), we’ve been embedding a lot of reader Tweet reactions to posts recently. Besides just calling out great comments, embedding allows us to share the conversation. If you have something to add, include the post URL and cc @9to5mac on the tweet for consideration.

We also pushed updates to 9to5Google.com and 9to5Toys.com, which should unite the experience. 9to5Forums.com and our commenting engine also got a big pickup this week from VanillaForums. It improves voting/order of comments, spam removal, and a host of smaller improvements. 9to5Forums will move to the new design shortly.

We really hope you like the update and it improves your experience at 9to5 (more on the way too). We love bringing you your favorite technology news!

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[slideshow]

We often get review items that do not merit their own review for a variety of reasons. Some might have gotten to us late after we have already read reviews, while others might be smaller niche items or some bigger ticket items that might not have blown us away, but they are still interesting nonetheless. Still, we think these guys are all noteworthy…

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Following the verdict in the Apple vs. Samsung trial today, where Samsung was found guilty of infringing various Apple patents related to the case, Apple is also coming out a winner, at least temporarily, in Google/Motorola’s attempt to block imports of iPhones and iPads to the United States.

In late June, we told you about Google’s attempt to block U.S. imports of iPhones and iPads based on a previous ruling that Apple infringed on one standard-essential Motorola patent. The initial ruling was under review by the ITC, which has power to block U.S. imports of Apple devices from Asia, with a decision expected at a hearing scheduled for today.

The ITC has now concluded its review (via paid blogger FossPatents), finding no violations for three of the four patents in the initial suit (including the one mentioned above), but remanded an investigation on a fourth, non-standard essential patent to Judge Thomas Pender. The result? According to FossPatents, there might be a violation and import ban related to the patent, but a remand and ITC review could take up to a year:

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Angry Birds Space version 1.3.0: Continuing with a consistent line up of new content following the app’s initial release, today Rovio teamed up with NASA to release an updated Angry Birds Space with 20 new levels set on Mars. Also included is two antenna egg levels, a new astronaut pig, and “three hidden rovers and landers to open special bonus levels and discover more about the NASA missions!”

Cut the Rope version 1.9: All the versions of Cut the Rope have been updated today with the new “Spooky Box” bringing 25 new levels that feature “ghosts that morph into different gameplay elements.” Also included in the update is new superpowers allowing players to control candy within the game area and access a fourth star that unlocks additional levels.

ProCamera HD: The full-featured professional camera app previously only available for iPhone has finally made its way to the iPad with the release of ProCameraHD. The app is half off to celebrate its launch.

The iPad is an essential travel companion, especially when it comes to taking videos and photos. With the built-in iPad 5-megapixel camera you can take high-resolution photos and 1080p HD video (720p HD video on iPad 2). The new ProCamera HD app takes pictures and videos better and faster, and helps you get more out of your images with the expert mode and other tools! The SnapTrigger is perfectly adapted to the iPad: You decide where the control bar is located on the screen; this allows you to take photos and videos your way. The new internal library Lightbox allows you to delete, share, and export multiple photos and videos easily.

Doodle Jump version 3.0: A huge update to the popular Doodle Jump game from developers Lima Sky. In its biggest update yet, the game now includes a new Ninja theme with “all-new power-ups, monsters, obstacles (read: BEAR TRAPS), and COINS that you can collect.” The update also includes a ton of other new outfits, abilities, and upgrades.

Well version 1.1: This new social app —developed by former Digg, Blip.fm, and Rackspace engineers— essentially allows users to share their To-Do lists. A few key features include suggestions from friends, and the ability to re-list interesting To-Dos, as well as popular lists for discovering content and more. Visit http://well.io/ for more information.

TV Guide version 3.0: The official TV Guide iOS app received a complete redesign today with a bunch of new features for its over 7 million users. A full list of what’s new is below:
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Parallels just announced the availability of its next generation of virtualization software for the Mac. Although details are scant at this point, it is safe to assume it is optimized for Mountain Lion and Windows 8.

Notable: If you purchase/purchased Parallels 7 after July 25 (Mountain Lion’s release date), you are eligible for a free copy of Parallels 8. Not too shabby.

Buy a FULL or UPGRADE version of Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac TODAY and you will receive an upgrade to our next version at NO ADDITIONAL CHARGE.

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More on the “TechGuarantee” here…or just download a free trial.
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