Apple has released a pair of new iPad mini commercials, Books and Photos. Like the previous Piano commercial, they start off with both the full-sized iPad and the iPad mini side-by-side, both showcasing the same app. Then fingers take turns, alternately at first, then in coordination, choosing different books and photos, respectively.
The HiLO Lens is currently on Kickstarter seeking backers for what can only be described as a clip on lens for your iPhone or iPad that allows you to get creative with your photographs. The HiLO lens is the first ever right angle lens for your iOS device that will let you take pictures from all sorts of new angles.
Apple will be paying Swiss national rail operator SSB $21 million dollars for using their clock design on the new iOS 6 Clock app for iPad. Apple launched the new Clock app for iPad in September of 2012, over 2 years since the original iPad launched sans Clock app of any kind, and initially without permission to use the famed design.
AT&T has announced that it will off a discount off any iPad or other tablet if you sign up for a new two year data plan. The new offer starts on November 9th and offers $100 off any iPad with LTE. The offer doesn’t just cover iPads either, any tablet that AT&T sells can qualify for the $100 discount.
Blue Microphones has announced the Spark Digital which is the first studio-grade condenser microphone available for the iPad. The new microphone is aimed at those that wish to use their iPad to record audio at an extremely high quality. The microphone will also work with any Mac or PC too.
The iPad 4, variously referred to as the "4th generation iPad" or the "iPad with Retina display" is the second full-sized iPad released by Apple in 2012. While that makes it tempting to flip the proverbial tablet in this review and simply say "this year it comes with an A6X", not only would it be lazy to play that particular card twice, in this case it would also be inaccurate. 7 months after the iPad 3 launched, Apple's has improved more than just the processor in this new, new iPad. They've also included their all-digital Lightning connector, bumped the FaceTime camera to 1.3 megapixels and 720p video, and upgraded the cellular chipset to support international LTE 4G networking.
The iPad 4 has an Apple A6X system-on-a-chip (SoC) is marketed as twice as fast, both in central and graphics processing, as the iPad 3 released only 7 short months ago. Apple's custom, manually-set ARM v7s processor -- called Swift -- remains the 32nm CMOS dual-core beast found in the iPhone 5, but it's been cranked up to 1.4 GHz. The X in the iPad 4's A6X once again represents a quad-core graphics processor, this time the PowerVR SGX554MP4. On spec, that's some serious fire-power.
The iPad mini, by contrast, has the same die-shrunk Apple A5 SoC found in the iPad 2. That's a 1GHz dual-core ARM Cortex A9 and PowerVR dual-core SGX543MP2. But the iPad mini also has the same 1024x768 display as the iPad 2. It's smaller but denser, going from 9.7-inches to 7.9 inches, and 132 ppi to 163 ppi, but it's the raw pixel count here that makes the difference.
Retina comes at a price, and that price is performance for the first generation devices that have to support it. The iPad 3, iPhone 4, the iPod touch 4, even the Retina MacBook Pros were and are maxed out trying to push all those pixels. Once that's done, though, once the price has been paid, however, performance improvements go back to where they belong -- making things feel faster.
So, even with the older, less powerful Apple A5, the iPad mini should fly. But will the new A6X help the iPad 4 do likewise?
Apple has just announced that it has sold a staggering three million Wi-Fi-only iPad and iPad minis over the opening three days of sales. The figure of three million has not been broken down between devices so includes both the iPad 4th generation and the iPad mini. It does not include cellular iPads which may have been pre-ordered but won't ship for another couple of weeks. The three million figure eclipses the last opening weekend figures of just 1.5 million Wi-Fi units sold of the new iPad (third generation).
When Steve Jobs introduced the very first iPad, one of his big statements was that the 75 million iPhone users in the world already knew how to use it. Well, many of those users were suprised to discover that five of the built-in apps that they had grown to love on their iPhone were missing on their iPad. Namely, Clock, Voice Memos, Weather, Calculator and Stocks. Rumor has it Apple didn't think those apps would scale to look good on the bigger iPad screen. Since then, Apple has added a clock app with iOS 6, but the other four are still missing. Fortunately, many great developers have filled that void and proven that, not only can these apps look good on the iPad. They can look great.
Westminster City Council has announced that it will soon be rolling out new smart street lighting that can be controlled with an iPad. The new smart street lights will replace around 14,000 central London street lights over the next four years.
