Friday, December 24, 2010

iPad 2 Shells - Front and Back Camera

China is one step ahead of everybody these days. There is no mystery. Like everything else, iPad, iPhones are manufactured there. What  prevents a guy in plant A (manufacturing iPad case) to pass the info to a friend who happens to own a plastic moulding company.

Chinese online stores are full of interesting things. Look at like these super nice TPU covers for iPad2. Yep I said iPad2. And there are dozens of companies selling iPad 2 cases, soft cases, hard cases, crystal cases, silicone ... 

If you check the leftmost iPad, there is a camera in the front center and a camera in the back. A large opening at the bottom seems to be for a big speaker with some sort of grid. As an ex laptop and tablet designer I would say that it could be also for more ventilation and hint to more powerful chipset.

Another point I noticed is that chinese manufacturers refer to the old and new case by dimensions and the new one seems to be smaller... Bets are opened.

Those who think iPad2 will be released in January are certainly wrong. FoxConn who manufactures iPads in ShenZhen is supposed to ship first production units end of February, which is consistent with a March announcement and April delivery. 


And look at this: Rolls of Centrino labels. Last time I seen some, Intel was sending unannounced security checks every 6 months to see if they were kept in a secure place. Here you can buy rolls of everything.

Look at this little girl in ShenZhen super duper computer store doing her home work. What do you think she will be doing when she grows up? Posting on Facebook and following Justin BBBBBr?

Nope, she will most certainly be an engineer and design software or hardware.

We are finished here. I am learning Mandarin.
再见


Picture credit goes to oskay
Browse the ShenZhen set pictures there are very interesting.

Tip: Lightning fast open of PDFs and Doc files


I saw yesterday a tweet complaining about .doc documents taking forever to open.

If you just need to read a .doc or pdf file 
  • Click on the file
  • Press Spacebar for Quick Look. 

It will literally take a second to open.

Same thing for a list of other files PDF, JPG etc... Check here for Apple info.

You can even open a group of files of different types by using Command click to select multiple files! 

Et Voilà!!

madmac

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Free MobileMe and "Find my iPad" Setup

Very few iPad users seem to know that they can setup a free MobileMe account if they have an iPhone 4 or an iPad.

If you have a 3G or 3Gs iPhone or an old generation iPod too bad you can't...

Apple has tons of documents on everything but it is often difficult to find. We did the digging for you and here is how you can set up that Free MobileMe account.


Then you can log into your new free MobileMe account from another computer and verify that your iPad is there.

This is not a toy. You can wipe out your data, email address book etc, if you are not careful!

You can send a message to the iPad to tell the person who found it where she/he can contact you.

You can also lock the device remotely to protect your data and prevent the person who found your device from accessing anything.

Now if your iPad is in the hands of a "Finder Keeper" kind of person, you can decide to wipe the device. Before that, you can send an Email telling the "thief":

"Hey I know exactly where you are, you have an hour to call me or I will send the FBI after you!" :)

Then follow Apple's procedure to wipe the data.

You can always restore your data from the last sync anyway....

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

What about IOS 4.3

You can read about all sorts of rumors about IOS4.3 dubbed the "Branson Update" by some and the "Murdoch update" by others. Many "insiders" claimed it would be released around mid-December.

The jury is still out on this, but in my opinion, this will be after the holidays. Apple developers' site, iTunes Connect, is completely closed from December 23 to 28 and will resume Friday December 29. This means major iTunes reshuffle, new iTunes version, related to the subscriptions updates added in IOS4.3.

Rumors claim that there is a video streaming bug in IOS4.2 with AirPlay, but this was certainly a Beta issue and IOS4.2.1 the version released to the public must be working or reviewers would have complained. I do not have AppleTV here and can't test these things. Too Bad.

Finally, the new IOS will also lock jailbroken iPhones and send their owners back to Apple for a fix. Technically they can "brick" the device, meaning make it dead, but I don't know if they will do it, they will lock it however according to this Apple patent.

There is also that print to network printers I would like fixed. We had that working for a week or two then it was removed. Why?

Some people can print on printers connected to Apple AirPort, but it does not work with a Linksys or DLink router. IOS4.2 should print to all network connected printers. I have a Mac and printers connected to it, I want to use my printers not buy a new one.

There is a fix floating around, not legal, because it uses a driver from Apple and you won't find it here, but if you google "AirPrintFix cloudapp" you may find it there.

BTW, All above are only rumors, Apple has always, always been able to surprise and dazzle people, so we are waiting.

Happy Holidays
madmac