Tag Archives: iPad

AV

So That Thing I Said About iPads…

In my last post, I made the argument (with the help of a dealnews.com article) that a college student needs a laptop more than she needs an iPad, because laptops let you create content while iPads (and other tablets) only let you consume existing content. So today I’m going to link you to a blog post that basically affirms my belief (and has a little tiny swear in it, sorry!)

http://joelrunyon.com/two3/an-unexpected-ass-kicking/

Here’s the main gist…

“I’ve been against Macintosh company lately. They’re trying to get everyone to use iPads and when people use iPads they end up just using technology to consume things instead of making things. With a computer you can make things. You can code, you can make things and create things that have never before existed and do things that have never been done before.”

“That’s the problem with a lot of people”, he continued, “they don’t try to do stuff that’s never been done before, so they never do anything, but if they try to do it, they find out there’s lots of things they can do that have never been done before.”

If the guy (Russell Kirsch) who created the world’s first internally programmable computer and the first digital image says it, it must be worth considering!

AV

What’s New With Apple

If you’re a geek like me, you know that today was the keynote speech from Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference 2012, and perhaps you watched one of the live streaming webcasts for up-to-the-minute coverage. But maybe you aren’t a geek (actualIy I hope you aren’t; otherwise this post might be very boring) and you’d just like to know, in plain English, if anything big went down today at Apple.

The main questions first: Did they announce a new iPad or iPhone or iPod? No, they did not. iPhone 5 should be coming our way soon, but not yet.

So what did they announce? The biggest deal, in my opinion, that came out of the keynote speech is the introduction of the new MacBook Pro. It seems like a hybrid between the former MacBook Pro, the MacBook Air, and the iPad 3. It’s super thin (.71 inches), light at just under 5 lbs, and it has Apple’s spanking new retinal display on a 15.4 inch screen, which means that the display looks absolutely gorgeous. There’s no optical drive though, which means you can’t stick any discs in there…it’s all Flash memory. But that’s how they got it so thin. Apple calls the “most beautiful computer” that the company’s ever made. Oh, and if you really want one, the price point is a staggering but Mac-standard $2,199.00 (that is the STARTING price), and you can buy one right now at the online Apple Store.

When the new iOS6 (the operating system used to power your mobile Apple devices) is released, our Apple friend Siri can now give you more information about movies, sports and restaurants  (I’m no Siri follower but apparently these things gave her issues before) and she can update your Twitter and Facebook, as well as open apps for you on your iPhone. I don’t use an iPhone, but these improvements will probably make heavy Siri users very happy. And Siri will be integrated into certain automobiles over the next 12 months. Siri will be available on iPad, too. While we’re talking mobile, FaceTime has been upgraded so that it will work on a cellular connection rather than just over wi-fi.

And speaking of Facebook and driving, Apple’s new OS, rolling out this summer, will integrate with Facebook, which is something Apple users have been requesting for awhile. And Apple is rolling out their own map service as a competitor to Google Maps, with live traffic updates and turn by turn navigation, which dovetails nicely with the car integration.

The new OS for Mac desktops is also coming out soon, and will include features such as Power Nap, which will sync your computer to any clouds you might be connected to (say, iCloud) and update software in the background, and voice recognition and dictation. Mac’s browser, Safari, will include a new search bar that can be used both to search the internet and enter URLs of sites you want to visit…exactly like Chrome and Firefox already do.

There are some other features, but I’ve listed what I think are the highlights. More details, if you want them, can be found here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/11/apples-wwdc-news-announcements-products_n_1586691.html