Apple Launching Its iPad In India On January 28th

Apple finally decided to launch its iPad in India. According to The Telegraph, the iPad will be launching in India on January 28th, which is just three days away from today. The iPad will be available in India only through Apple's premium retailers.

According to The Telegraph, the Wi-Fi version of the iPad will be priced somewhere between Rs. 26,000 to Rs. 33,000. The 3G+Wi-Fi version will be priced somewhere between Rs.33,000 to Rs. 44,000. Each version will be coming in three capacities, 16GB, 32GB and 64GB.

The iPad itself requires no introduction. By now almost everyone has heard of or used the iPad in India. We are just disappointed that Apple took this long to launch the iPad here. With the second generation iPad launch just three months away from now, does it mean that we won't be getting it on time as well? Something tells us the answer is "Yes" .

Read More

Microsoft Is Working On FaceTime Rival Service

Are you guys crazy for the smartphones bearing front facing cameras for video-call/chat ever since Apple showed its FaceTime feature on the iPhone 4. The latest manufacturer to join the flock is Microsoft. A website called Neowin has evidence of a chat application that will use front-facing camera application for the Windows Phone 7 platform. This platform is intended to compete with the Apple's FaceTime.

Recently, Skype released a new version 3.0 App for iPhone and iPad platforms. It allows to make video calls over 3G and Wi-Fi. As per Neowin, a key Windows Phone 7 employee talked about several upcoming features for the WP7 platform at a high profile event. 

An ex-Microsoft Silverlight Program Manager, Justin Angel, furnished a screenshot of a Microsoft.Phone.Media.Extended.dll file that mentions of making use of SelfPortrait Camera aka the front-facing camera. This video chat service might come as part of Microsoft Live services for the Windows Phone 7 platform.  It's unsure whether it would be shown at the Mobile World Congress 2011 or later this year. 

Microsoft needs to buckle up for introducing the Video call/chat service for Windows Phone 7. We can anticipate this feature to come along with Windows Phone 7.5 update, rumored to be codenamed as Mango. Google has already shown Video Chat feature through Android 3.0 Honeycomb meant for Tablets only.

Read More

Apple iPad 2 Coming With WiFi, UMTS & CDMA

 According to industry sources at chip component makers, Apple is going to work on 3 versions of iPad 2 that will consist of Wi-Fi, UMTS and CDMA models as reported by Taiwanese news daily DigiTimes. The mass production of these iPads is expected to start in late January. Once again the "industry sources" offers some secretive update but there's no way to confirm them to be true.

Apple iPad truly has been the most discussed and searched gadget of this year. Despite of that, several short comings exist in the tablet that are anticipated to be covered up in the next-generation iPad 2. Apple follows an annual product cycle under which a new product with design and/or hardware refresh comes out every year mostly. The iPad's annual product cycle period is January and hence eyes are glued to Apple for announcing the new iPad 2 sometime at or after the Consumer Electronics Show 2011 in Las Vegas.

The industry sources placed at Taiwanese component makers pointed out that about 60 to 65 per cent of current iPad shipments consist of UMTS 3G model. Hence Apple is expected to work closely with telecom operators and roll out second-generation iPad in conjunction with different wireless majors. Apple plans to ship about 500,000-530,000 iPad units in January at a ratio of 3:4:3 for Wi-Fi, UMTS and CDMA models respectively. For these new iPad 2 models, Apple is also said to be working on better oleophobic coating and anti-reflective screen. 

These sources also stated that Apple will gradually cease the production of iPad after January and whatever iPad inventory is left would be used to suffice the demand of the same model through the year 2011. The sources estimate that the iPad 2 shipments in 2011 will reach 40 million units. Too many figures and too many "industry" sources have been cited so far. Let's see a grainy or clear photo of iPad 2 before launch or wait for Apple to give out the official word on the same

Read More

Apple Gadgets Antennas to Hide Behind Logo

Antenna's technology was a big problem area when Apple introduced its iPhone for 6 months ago. Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple did clarify the issue pertaining to the new Antennae technology used in iPhone 4. We also got a glimpse of Apple's Antenna Design and Test Labs - Apple. At these Labs, Apple Engineers are now working on a new Antenna design to place it behind the Apple Logo of portable devices. Patently Apple spotted a patent that describes a filing about Logo Antennas in Apple's portable products.

The Apple iPad has its antenna just behind the logo, which clearly shows what Apple's hardware engineers have been aiming to do. Apple Hardware Engineers are now working to place the Antennas behind the Apple Logo to gain stronger signal without intervening metal or interference from other conductive housing walls. Antenna won't be limited just to Wi-Fi but would cover cellular telephone bands such as GSM 850/900/1800/1900/2100MHz data bands. Apart from the multi-band telecommunications, the antennas would also support Global Positioning System capabilities. 

Apple's Patent calls the new antenna technology as Logo Antenna and hardware engineers state that it's possible to cram behind the logos of mobile devices such as iPhone or iPod touch. Even laptops such as MacBooks can have this antenna behind the logo and hence might offer telephony option.  In addition to that, these antennas can be placed in desktop machines like iMacs and Mac Minis. 

Logo Antennas would be placed Apple products within housing machined from precision unibody aluminum block or other metals. The walls of housing might be used to hold conductive components such as displays. So the conductive antenna cavity might help isolating the Logo Antenna from other circuit inside the housing. 

Year after year Apple aims at offering slimmer products and thereby increasing the challenge for hardware engineers to place the antenna in the best location in the product. It would be interesting to see future Apple products carry the Logo Antenna technology.

Read More

Google Latitude Now Available on the iPhone, iPad

Google Maps was a built-in applicaiton in the iPhone since the 1st version back in the year 2007. All these years, while other phones running OSes like Android or Symbian enjoyed Google Latitude - a friend locator-tracking feature as part of Google Maps, Apple had rejected the iPhone version of the app previously. Now, you can download the newest version of the Latitude app on all recent iOS devices like the iPhone 3GS (sorry iPhone 3G users), iPhone 4, iPod Touch 3rd and 4th generation and the iPad. It will require your iDevice to have iOS 4.0 or above installed. 

With Latitude, your friends (ideally, people you know rather well) can know your current location on a Google map. Latitude lets you share your location in the background, even when the application is closed or your device screen is locked. As a measure for your privacy, you can share only city-level location, hide your location or turn off background updating at any time. It may sound creepy to some, but a few could also find it useful. Consider that you are reaching some unknown place where your friend has already reached - thus that person could turn on Latitude, and you just have to navigate to them. 

Check it out on the Apple iTunes website here.

Read More

Macs, iOS devices to do Wireless Presentations?

For people having their heads spinning over the title and sub-title of this story, let's begin right with the basics. AirPlay is a simplified jargon for the technology that allows transmitting audio-visual content from a Mac or an iOS device (like the iPhone or iPad) to the Apple TV. Apple TV is a small box that connects to a television via HDMI and streams content over the Internet or stored locally using Wi-fi. 

Now, Keynote is an application and part of the iWork suite for creating presentations on a Mac (and even the iPad) - like Microsoft PowerPoint that most of you would know. Now, while their creative application suite called iLife was updated to the latest 2011 version, the iWork isn't yet updated from version 2009. And the reason for them to delay this update? Because they're trying to get AirPlay to work with Keynote.  

Softpedia reported about a person who mailed Steve Jobs if AirPlay would allow streaming wireless presentations via an iOS device or a Mac, and got back an "It is all coming soon" answer. So, is this news any worthy to jump off your chair? If you own or plan to own an Apple TV, then maybe. With it and the new Keynote 11 software, you would be able to wirelessly project your presentations to an LCD TV. You could do it on a projector as well; provided that it has an HDMI port or you have an HDMI-to-VGA converter ready (since Apple TV only has the HDMI out port).  

While this may be good news, we hope this feature will also come to Keynote on the iPad soon. I'm sure many corporate folk using an iPad would want to show off their hand-made slides with the freedom of walking around the boardroom.

Read More

FarmVille out on Apple iPad

Habitual farmers now need not rue the absence of Zynga's wildly popular FarmVille on the iPad, because it's out now for free on Apple's app store. This port to iPad comes after the release for the iPhone platform in June this year, where it was very successful. Even that would work on the iPad but this version is HD and customized to be played on the iPad.

The gameplay is the same as it is on the Facebook as well as the iPhone version, albeit with a touch interface tailored for the iPad. According to Zynga, push notifications will be used to alert farmers to the health of their crops.

Read More

BLACKBERRY PLAYBOOK THE NEW COMPETITOR FOR APPLE IPAD

BlackBerry, recently unveiled its new tablet. It’s called Playbook (and not as it was rumored BlackPad … ) and seems to have all it takes to give a hard time for both the Samsung Galaxy and iPad .

Playbook has two cameras One, internal , 3 megapixel and other an external 5 megapixel camera. With the display of 7 inches (compared to 9.7 iPad) , and has a resolution of 1024 × 600 pixels.

The new BlackBerry tablet will have the support for Adobe Flash (in addition to the HTML5 standard ) and the operating system on which the BlackBerry will not hold up( as stated by the rumors ), but the newTablet BlackBerry OS.

Playbook will arrive in the United States in early 2011; with regard to prices , however , it is called 499 €for the base model up to a 699€.

Read More