Category: iPad

  • Hot stuff, cold crap – shopping for your nerd gear in 2012

    I’d planned to spend a couple of hours watching my son at the first Little League clinic of the season today, but turned out it wasn’t that kind of clinic — dads begone. Like all good gadgetistas, though, I had a few niggling unmet accessory needs to fill. So sprung for a couple of hours of…

  • A true marketplace for privacy in mobile apps

    A huge controversy erupted the other day when a savvy programmer discovered that an app on the iPhone called Path was secretly uploading the entire contents of users’ address books to Path’s own servers. Then stories spread that many apps on the iPhone uploaded the contents of the address book. Turned out Apple had left the barn door…

  • Review: First 24 hours with the Amazon Kindle Fire

    It costs less than half what an iPad costs but it does more than half of what an iPad does. That’s the bottom line. The new Amazon Kindle Fire is no iPad but it is a slick little gadget that is frequently delightful and worth $199. Sure, the Fire has a smaller screen, slower processor…

  • The iPad as digital library and other lessons of the first year

    Well, we’ve been very satisfied iPad owners for just over a year now so it’s a good time to look back and review. My intention is to dig a lot deeper than the usual gadget reviews and give a sense of what it’s like to have an iPad day in and day out for a…

  • Rock, paper scissors: Should I get a Kindle, iPad or MacBook?

    Well, we’ve been Amazon Kindle owners for almost four years now at our house, we’ve had Apple’s iPad for almost a year and we’ve had Mac laptops since too long ago to remember. So we’re getting asked a lot now: Should I buy an iPad or a Kindle? Can I use an iPad instead of…

  • Chrome browser, Pinboard site lead the list of recent changes

    Spent some time housekeeping on the blog tonight, including updating the software and services in use page. Google’s Chrome browser, version 10, has replaced an increasingly buggy Firefox. I am really digging the way extensions have their own little button row. I’ve also noted that I had to dump Mozy for Crashplan last month after…

  • Getting iTunes to sync standard def videos to your iPad

    We’re big fans of the recent PBS Masterpiece series Downton Abbey and bought the high-definition version from iTunes to watch on the big TV that is connected to our Mac mini media server. But when my wife asked me to load the series onto her iPad recently, I ran into an annoying syncing problem based…

  • The future of Apple computing isn’t all led by Apple

    There’s a great video up on Macworld’s site of a conversation between four highly knowledgeable Mac pundits about the “future of the Mac.” The participants were Daringfireball’s John Gruber and Tidbits’ Adam Engst along with Jason Snell and Dan Moren from Macworld. The discussion was interesting and worth the 48 minutes or so of my…

  • Why can’t anyone compare iTunes store video to Android’s offerings?

    The other day, Josh Topolsky at Engadget published a lengthy and detailed review of the new Samsung Nexus S smartphone which runs the very latest version of Google’s Android operating system. The 3,300 word review seemingly runs through every feature, includes a dozen or more pictures and generally appears to be the most thorough run…

  • Google eBooks review: Liked the rough edge, not much else

    Google’s long-awaited electronic bookstore has finally arrived with the promise of great “openness” for all. But in the end, Google’s offering is merely another in a long line of ebook platforms that offers some pluses and minuses but in no way, shape or form revolutionizes the market. Whether you want to talk about pricing, selection,…