Apple, you got some ‘splainin’ to do! But no, seriously, this is big. Mark Gurman, from 9to5mac, just posted a video showing how incredibly easy it is to unlock an iPad using just a Smart Cover (or magnets, really). Worse yet, it’s stupid easy to perform. Any Smart Cover could unlock any iPad 2 and jump into the last used screen. Not that I have anything to hide on my iPad. The only reason I use a passcode is to prevent my four-year old from messing up my Jelly Defense game.
This iPad security flaw joins the one concerning Siri found just the other day. In that case the voice tools allow users to send emails and place calls all while the phone is technically locked. Hopefully both flaws make their way to Apple HQ and it will be addressed immediately.
[Click through for the video] → Read More
Anyone looking for a $69 16GB iPad 2? Apparently, some IT guy over at one of Sears’ third-party resellers, GSM On Sale, had a bit of a face-palm moment: the site temporarily listed the iPad for $69.99.
Oddly enough, the listing claims that you’ll save a whopping $30 by taking advantage of this deal, posting an original price of $99.99. Honestly we’d snatch up an iPad at either of those price points, if at any time, in any world, it was possible to do so. → Read More
The most important hardware aspect of a tablet is arguably the screen, which is the main object you interact with, and the item through which you receive most of the tablet’s content. Therefore, the quality of that hardware is paramount. And it seems Apple has made sure that its screen is of the highest quality. Motorola? Not so much. → Read More
Do you spend a lot of time trying to attach your iPad 2 to the limbs of trees, or building elaborate towers on which to perch it? You, sir, could use an accessory stand from Joby to save yourself some trouble. We saw the original iPad flavor versions of these back at CES, and now they’ve done the adjustments to the design so you can get one for your iPad 2 as well. → Read More
One of the best parts of the iPad 2 is the colorful, magical smart cover that comes as a peripheral. Lift the cover and your iPad turns on, drop it and it goes to sleep. It’s kind of addictive. But what if someone actually built an app around that fidgety behavior?
Well, Evernote just did. It’s called Evernote Peek, a free app for the iPad 2 that is designed around the smart cover. It is the first smart cover app, and it may even make you smarter. → Read More
Scott Forstall, speaking at WWDC 2011, has just announced some major numbers relating to Apple’s iOS. 200 million iOS devices have been sold, which they claim makes it the #1 mobile operating system in the world. With Android nipping at their heels, that could be a transient title, at least in the mobile phone world. The iPad, however, is another story. → Read More
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think iPads grew on trees or were on sale at TJ Maxx or something with the number of these things people want to give away. Regardless, we have a 16GB Wi-Fi iPad 2 waiting for you in sunny San Francisco, ready to wing its way to your mailbox in a few days. Want it? Thought so. Here’s how to enter. → Read More
If you’ve been trying to convince your parents to buy a Mac but they refuse on religious grounds, this may be the solution you’re looking for. The new Yahoo Messenger now supports cross-platform video chatting and regular text chats on the iPad 2 to any other device, including the iPhone. → Read More
Rather than waste your entire morning forcing you to read two iPad 2 case reviews (I think I could barely read one at a sitting, but but these are important enough to look at more closely), I’ve decided to mush together two reviews into one megareview, the way Voltron is made up of multiple robots. To that end, I present to you an assessment of the Speck Pixelskin HD Wrap and their recently released Smartshell. I begin with the Smartshell.
When Speck first announced this case I was quite excited. I had already sunk $69 into the fancy leather iPad Smart Cover (I didn’t know it would be $69 when I bought it and by the time I hit the register I decided it would be bad form to upset the Apple genius who literally stood with me the entire freaking time while I was in the store) and I used it religiously for quite a while. However, I like to resell my Apple stuff when new stuff hits so I decided to move to a full-coverage case (the HD Wrap, below) and wait until Speck released this hunk of plastic. → Read More
If you’d asked me a week ago what I thought about Honeycomb, the tablet version of Android, I would have said that it was in very bad shape and that it would be several months before it could even hold a candle to the iPad 2. Because despite my excitement to see Android take on Apple’s ridiculously successful iPad, my experience with the Motorola Xoom — the first Honeycomb tablet — has been decidedly poor.
From day one things were off to a bad start. At first, Android Market would crash literally every time I opened it. The Android team fixed that pretty quickly, but the OS was still riddled with weird bugs: swiping between home screens is laggy, widgets go blank and need to refresh, and there are myriad other glitches that pop up at random. And even beyond the bugs, there are weird quirks in the OS that feel poorly thought out (seriously, why does the ‘Home’ button look like an Up arrow?). But now I’ve had some time to test out the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, the new tablet that was given to Google I/O attendees and will be available in stores beginning June 8. And after spending the last couple of days using it around my apartment, I’m much more optimistic. In fact, I’m guessing this device is going to do very well, and that it foreshadows a bright future ahead for Honeycomb. → Read More
Flickr maintains a live count of the cameras being used on the site, updating constantly with the latest models, showing trends, and so on. And if you head over to the Apple-branded cameras, you find an interesting, though not particularly surprising, statistic: almost nobody is using the iPad 2′s camera. Out of however many million of these things were sold, there are only 22 active iPad 2 camera users on Flickr. 22! → Read More
We’ve always been fans of the Dodocase, the well-crafted case for iPad, Kindle, and likely some other stuff soon. Their new iPad 2 line looks to be as good as the original we reviewed, but it’s possible that for some, the design is a bit too understated. Solution? Get an artist like Rex Ray to make a splashy, original design for the thing. → Read More
MIC Gadgets has taken some great pictures of the iPad 2 launch at the Beijing Apple store. My favorite part? The official scalping area, where people who bought up all the stock can sit and wait for disappointed buyers to come out and buy for a markup. I have to say, though, for a city as big and dense as Beijing, I kind of expected even more people than this. Regardless, Apple’s hot little tablet sold out in a few hours. Maybe because they let scalpers buy like 20 each?! [via SlashGear] → Read More
This morning’s upgrades to Apple’s iMac line of computers brought a range of nice features. But most were just spec bumps. The big new addition is Thunderbolt. Following the initial roll-out to the MacBook Pros, the new super high-speed ports are clearly destined to be a key component across Apple’s product lines. But what about Apple’s two key newer products: the iPhone and iPad? Apple hasn’t said a word yet about what Thunderbolt means for them.
During a call with Apple this morning, I specifically asked about when we might see Thunderbolt-enabled adapters for iPhone/iPad. Apple would only say that they had nothing to share at this time. That’s usually code for “it’s coming, but just not yet.” And that makes sense. Why pour all this money into a new technology if you’re not going to use it in places where it makes the most sense? But it’s also not that simple. → Read More
A couple months ago, we noted that a company called 955 Dreams was playing the iPad like jazz with their hot app, The History of Jazz. Now they’re back again with another musically-themed iPad app. And it’s far out, man.
On The Way To Woodstock takes everything that 955 Dreams learned from the jazz app and expands upon it. I had a chance to sit down with the team a few days ago and play around with the app. It’s beautiful, fun, and engaging. And much like The History of Jazz, I suspect it’s exactly the type of app Apple likes seeing pop up from developers to showcase their device. → Read More
It’s exactly like the Colorware version of the original iPad just with the iPad 2. You follow? They’ll paint yours for $400 or you can order a new one directly from Colorware starting at $900. → Read More
Who says the iPad 2 isn’t pocketable? You just need the right pants and Tactical Pants Blog found three with pockets boss enough to hold the iPad. Because that’s what the world needs. People walking around with iPads in their pockets. → Read More
Apple started rolling out the iPad 2 internationally right after the launch in the US, but one country was missing from the list: Japan, one of the company’s biggest markets worldwide. The reason, of course, was the quake and tsunami that hit the country on March 11. But today Japan’s biggest business daily, The Nikkei, is reporting that the Japanese will be able to lay their hands on the iPad 2 as early as this Thursday.
UPDATE: Apple just announced that, yes, the iPad 2 will be available in Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, and eight other countries this week. → Read More
The iPad 2 is still a hard Furby to find. It’s still sold out mostly everywhere but at least the estimated wait time is dropping to 1-2 weeks on Apple.com. The shipping window jumped to 4-5 weeks shortly after the iPad 2 first went on sale. Well, it’s been a few weeks since then and the estimate dropped as promised even though the Japanese quake reportedly caused part supply issues. → Read More
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